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It's a possibility. That's one of the things about 50 year old translations of game rules. I know that back in the day there is some stuff that we all knew about RQ2 rules that seemed very clearly spelled out, that when read today seems a bit fuzzy. Of course it could have just been a translation error too. I know Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea suffered somewhat when translated into English. For instance the title refers travelling a distance of twenty thousand French lieue (about 78 thousand kilometers) while submerged, as opposed to travelling to a depth of that distance. Also in some translations they translated units of measurement over without converting the values, that is 100 meters was translated as 100 feet, which throws off all of the sound mathematics the Verne used for the Nautilus. I think it's only fairly recently that corrected translations have been made available. And in the gaming world the bad (but probably well intentioned) editing of 5th Edition Pendragon lives on in infamy. So who know with Land of the Ninja?

Until a player gets really experienced the ki chance won't be much higher than the critical chance anyway. You could tone this down by: Separating the ki roll and it's success level from the skill roll and it success level - but then you'd need to give some benefit from the ki roll. Lightsaber Forms could help here. Use RQ style parries instead of BRP combat matrix. Basically in RQ if you made your parry roll you at least parried the attack becuase you got to use your parrying weapon's armor points to reduce the damage, even from a crtical attack. Now a normal Sword had 10 AP in RQ3 a Katana 14 AP, and a lightsaber can probably stop a lot more than that. At least twice as much (28 points), which sould stop most crticals (Future world had energy sword do 2D10, and M_SPACE has a Force Sword doing 2d8). So a crtical hit won't mean as much against someone with a lightsaber anyway. Oh, and since lightsabers can stop so much you might want to change it from seeing if the lightsaber can stop to damage to seeing if the Jedi can hold onto his weapon or if the force of the attack knocks it out of his hand. You could use a STR roll, skill roll, an opposed roll, or even the resistance table (STR+DEX vs damage?)

Probably a translation error. Also, prior to RQ3 there were no "magic points" and instead you spent POW, which was considered to be temporary POW unless permanent POW was specifically stated.

Hope you get something good out of it. Yeah and consider that in Eastern philosophy spiritual health is just as important as physical health, so some of the psychic abilities/magical powers could come from spiritual skills. There is probably a spiritual skill that helps with recovering magic (Force?) points. It also might helpt to explain Dark Side powers and why they are shunned. You kinda wonder what sort of skill would lead to Force Lightning. You can see how it is some perversion of the norm. You could but the time to get a power, basically one week is fine in RQ/BRP terms. THat it takes a long time to increase Ki skills is due to thier being very powerful, as their primary benefit is the greatly increased chance of a critical success. Someone with Lighsaber 120% and Lightsaber Ki 65% will critical 65% of the time when they spend a MP. I dunno. I mean Luke and Leia did a bunch of nice stuff but their force powers didn't awaken until they were exposed to Force use. Doubly so since Ki abilities requires MPs to activate. It fits the Samuai Kensai and Ninja stories.. Basically in those stories you have one master swordsman or ninja who does incredible things. LOL! You should look at the old D6 Star Wars RPG some time. In that game characters got Force Points that they could spend to double all their abilities for a round. It is kinda a problem when one side in a duel spends a force point and the other doesn't. You pretty get the scene where the Jedi try to arrest Chancellor Palpatine. But keep in mind that a character only gets a critical if they roll one natural or spend a MP and roll under their ki skill, which starts off at their critical chance and goes up slowly. Well, it's playing a Rune Level character in RuneQuest. By the time the powers come into play a character already has a skill at 90%, and the ki skills are slow to improve, so it's a gradual process. On top of that there is magic in LotN which helps to counterbalance some of this. That's good. I find it makes it a lot easier for players to pick up a game if they haven't been indoctrinated into D&D thinking. I don't know why but it is the only RPG that players tend to drag in with them.

In all fairness to clarence M_Space started as, and still remains a supplement for another core game system, which probably has more detailed rules. It real claim to fame was that it covered SciFi stuff for D100 based RPGs. It's kinda like the original Worlds of Wonder boxed set. RQ/Stormbringer and CoC had more detailed and comprehensive rules, but Magic World, Furture Worlds, and Super World covered stuff that hadn't really been dealt with before in BRP games. Even Magic World gave a different take of Fantasy RPGing that RQ or Stormbringer did, and one more in line with traditional FRPGs. So I look at M_SPACE the way I look at the original 3 book Traveller. I'm not as familiar with Revolution D100, and was commenting on M-SPACE. Again I wasn't bashing the method, I just didn't consider it to be one of the games better features and so didn't mention it as a merit - and then had to defend why I didn't do so. Yup, but if we all felt the same about rules there be no M-SPACE, Revolution D100, or even RQ or T&T. All these differernt RPGs came about becuase not everyone liked the way D&D did everything. There are cases where a different approach might work better for some people. Case in point, I was thinking of a system for dueling or arm wrestling based on a clock dial. Basically a conflict would start off at 12 Noon, and the advantage marker would shift one or more ticks to either side depending on who won, and by how much. At around 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock one side would win. You could have more than three ticks to win (i'd go with half the pool pool of M-Space as it can shift back and forth) and apply an advantage modifier based on how far the track is to one side. You could even apply the stressed modifier at the half way point. This could also work out well for chases where the track could represent the distance between the parties, and I believe would be more dynamic than "hit point" attrition TO me seeing vehicles get closer or further apart with one finally escaping to getting cornered is more interesting that marking off generic points. Outside influences could either apply a modifier to the skills or even shift the advantage track. For instance stuff like side street, obstacles, and jumping a ditch could all be special situations to add to a chase that could adjust the advantage track. Maybe even have a doubling down option where a task has it difficulty increased but the rewards are also doubled. Althought not directed at me this does fit in well with my advantage track idea. Nor do you necessarily need differernt effect for each contest. You could start by simply giving a die roll modifier based upon the degree of advantage, with the amount of shift indicating how severe the special effect was. Optionally you could do something like in FATE where a player could take a complication of some sort to avoid suffering a change in the advantage track or even defeat. For instance being disarmed and losing your lightsaber to avoid a large swing/loss.

Okay, I found the boxed set, here we go (quick paraphrase and condense): Gaining & Improving Ki How you gain an improve Ki An adventuer who has achieved 90% or more in a worthy skill has gained ki. Ki is measured in percentile just like an ordinary skill. Ki begins at the characters critical success chance (i.e. 5%), and remains separate from, and raised independently from the base skill in the future, or from other skills. For example Kenjustu (Swordmanship, yeah I guess RQ3 beat Mythras to combat styles) Ki only applies to Swords and only grants Sword powers. One Ki has been gained in remains dormant and useless until the adventure seeks out a Master to train them. Initial training is 50 hours (in RQ 3 that was about the same time as it would take to train a skill, or about a week worth of training). An Ancestral Kami can be used in lieu of a Master (I suppose Force Ghosts count) Ki can be increased though experience, practice and training, but as if it were at the rating of the base skill (i.e. if your Sword skill is 94% you improve your 5% Ki score as if it were at 94%. Oh, and LotN has an Instruct divine spell that lets lets someone teach a skill that they had mastered at 1d3% per point in the spell. So if you run into a Master with 10 POW invested in Instruct you could get a huge boost quickly. Using Ki What KI does and how to activate it. Character spends one or more magic points or POW points depending on the Ki Type. Adventure then attempts a skill roll. If the roll is under the Ki % the result is a critical success, and the character may earn a check in the Ki skill with GM permission. If the result is not under the Ki result it is treated as a normal skill roll with the corresponding success level (critical, special, normal) but the character receives no experience check for the skill. A Ki roll once initiated by spending magic/power points cannot be aborted. Ki skill can be augmented by using the Cermony skill. (In RQ 3 Ceremony was a magic skill that allowed a character to spend time preparing for a spell and if the roll was successful they would boost their chances of success by one or more D6, depending on how long they prepped- in the case of ki the benefit was limited at double the ki skill score - that is someone with 10% in a Ki skill could only raise it up to 20% through ceremony, no longer how long they prepped). Ki Special Abilties Neat things you can do with KI above and beyond a critical success. Here is a simple. Get extra attacks with Jo Stick and Nunchaku Missile Weapons can hit a desired location and ignore armor (the latter is true of all criticals in RQ) Can declare and throw an unlimited shiruken, but must spend a magic point and make a successful ki roll for each one in other to throw another. Failing a Ki roll results in the rest of the attacks automatically missing. Parry Ki allows for multiple parries. Spend a MP and if the parry ki is a success the character may attempt a second parry, and so on,. Dodge Ki works similar to parry ki Iajutus Ki. Iai is the fast drawk skill and reduces the Strike Rank that a character attacks on. Iai Ki is treated as a critical success (which means attacking on DEX SR with no modifier for SIZ or weapon) and beats other Iaijustsu rolls on a tied success level. Yademejutsu (Arrow-Cutting) Ki: Yado skill is used to cut arrows out of the air, basically a parry against arrows (or blaster bolts). Yado Ki allows a character to parry multiple arrows in a daisy chain manner similar to parry and dodge ki. Craft KI: Each worthy craft has it's own ki skill. All retire permanent POW to use but created a minor magical item. For instance a tailor might craft a fine Kimono that improves the wearers APP by one. Performance Ki: Each skill has it's own corresponding Ki skill. Requires the expenditure of 1d6 magic points but if successful the user gets a minor glimpse into the future, summed up in one word or short phase Agility KI: Allows for amazing feats of Climbing ki lets people move along sheer walls and ceilings, Jumping Ki lets someone jump twice his height vertically or four times his height horizontally. Throw Ki allows an object to be thrown exactly where desired or even ricochet, at up to twice it's normal range (it could be adapted to retrieve a lost lightsaber). Perception Ki: Allows the user to see and hear things beyond the normal human range, notice if someone is disused of if they have any Ki. Basically every skill has some special Ki perk. Okay, that the gist of it. I can go into some spefic skills in more detail or go over one's is didn't cover if someone has any requests. But I think I laid out enough of it so that people will be able to understand how Ki skills worked. Now I think it's pretty obvious how Jedi seems to draw upon this sort of thing. Most Jedi powers work a lot like modernized versions of Ki powers. Even the different lightsaber forms could be adapted to BRP by given each it own unique Ki abilities (Form I could get a sweep attack adapted from the attacks by giant sized creatures, Form II could get a riposte attack on a successful parry, Form III could parry for nearby allies, Form IV could have acrobatic spinning attack that would count as attacking on the move without losing the defense, Form V could redirect blaster bolts instead of just parrying them, and so on). Even Jedi hand crafting their own lightsaber and empowering it with the Force matches up fairly well with craft ki. There is no running skill in RQ3 but one could be added and Run Ki could grant a Boost Of Speed. Likewise there is no Persuade Ki, but Mind Trick could be added. Force Push could be a adaptation of Throw Ki. Instinctive Astrogation would be tied to an Astrogation skill. Most Force Powers have obvious ties to a normal skill, and some analogue. If I were to use Ki skills in a Star Wars-esque BRP game I'd probably do up a list of powers and a list of skills and match them up, then come up with KI powers for the skills that were overlooked. In fact now that I wrote posted this stuff here I think it fits the Force even better than I originally thought. The 90% requirement is similar to Rune Lords in RQ. I suppose a GM might lower or remove it for a Star Wars game, but might need to put other restrictions on it, increase the 50 hour training time to acquire a ki skill for those with base skills below 90% (say 50 hours per point of fumble chance),or require a base skill roll to see if the training worked (which wouldn't be much of problem for a master with 90%, but might take several tries and several weeks or months for a padawan with 40%) . Anywhere there is is.

Yet Another batch of stats for comparison. Hope these seem about right. Ju-87-B-1 Pilot 20 5% ±2 428 54 54 67 Ju 87D-1 Pilot 21 0% ±1 458 64 64 68 F-80C Shooting Star Pilot 30 5% ±3 1068 66 66 52 P-80C/F-80C Pilot 30 5% ±4 1068 62 62 50 Avro Vulcan B.1 Pilot 31 5% ±3 1160 90 90 76 F-4E Phantom II Pilot 44 5% ±9 2647 76 76 74 Tupolev Tu-22M Pilot 41 0% ±5 2230 97 97 87 F-14D Tomcat Pilot 45 5% ±10 2775 80 80 80 F-14D Tomcat Pilot 45 10% ±10 2775 80 80 80 Panavia Tornado GR.4 Pilot 45 0% ±8 2680 77 77 73 Su-27SK Flanker Pilot 46 10% ±11 2792 78 78 78 Su-27 Flanker B approx Pilot 44 10% ±10 2546 79 79 78 C919 Pilot 28 0% ±3 936 86 86 72 Cessna T-182 Q II Turbo Skylane Pilot 14 0% ±1 204 46 46 48 Douglas AD-6/A1-H Skyraider Pilot 23 0% ±1 578 66 66 76 Aichi B7A2 Pilot 24 0% ±2 633 62 62 77 Fairey Swordfish I Pilot 16 0% ±1 257 56 56 60 A-7E Corsair II Pilot 32 0% ±5 1231 72 72 64 F-8E Crusader Pilot 41 0% ±6 2204 72 72 66 F-11F-1/F-11A Tiger Pilot 33 0% ±5 1352 68 68 60 Icon A5 Pilot 14 0% ±1 197 38 38 38 F-15EX Eagle II Pilot 47 10% ±9 2966 79 79 78 Seamax M-22 Pilot 15 0% ±1 235 35 35 35 DH 110 Sea Vixen FAW. 2 Pilot 32 5% ±5 1240 76 76 68 Buccaneer S.2 Pilot 31 0% ±4 1195 81 81 69 Jet Provost T.5 Pilot 26 5% ±4 789 55 55 43 Dassault MD.452 Mystère IIC Pilot 31 5% ±5 1184 63 63 54 Hawker Hunter F.6 Pilot 32 5% ±6 1285 66 66 59 Short Sunderland III Pilot 19 0% ±1 380 80 80 81 Saro A33 Pilot 18 0% ±1 357 76 76 78 Saunders-Roe SR.A/1 Pilot 28 5% ±5 920 65 65 56 Convair F2Y Sea Dart Pilot 34 10% ±10 1483 70 70 69 Convair YB-60 Pilot 28 0% ±2 913 99 99 82 Ytu-95MS Pilot 29 -5% ±1 1033 101 101 110 Lockheed L-1049C Super Constellation Pilot 23 0% ±1 592 85 85 94 Douglas DC-3A-S1C3G Pilot 20 0% ±1 413 70 70 74 Saab 90 Scandia Pilot 21 0% ±1 503 72 72 77 Vikers VC1 Viking 1B Pilot 21 0% ±3 472 72 72 88 Bell 206B-L4 Long Ranger Pilot 16 5% ±1 246 45 45 49 Grumman G-21/JRF-5 Goose Pilot 19 0% ±1 361 57 57 63 Super Petrel LS Pilot 15 0% ±1 212 36 36 38 Pipistrel Panthera Pilot 19 0% ±1 401 45 45 49

Exactly. Lucas mentioned it during interviews, and I recall a priest bringing it up when people brought up Christian symbolism and mythology in the story, with the preist replying that it's really more or an Eastern style philosophy laid over a Western style hero's story. It's why the "Grey Jedi" and "Dark Jedi" concepts don't really work according to how Lucas set up the Force. Someone is either in balance or not. I haven't played" too much" BRP either.😊 But I have played some and run more than I've played and, yeah it's differernt from D&D. Combat is for keeps and thus taken a bit more seriously, and yes adventures tend to be more story driven and focused. In my experience the biggest hurdle I've seen with people coming over to BRP isn't with BRP specifically, but with the assumptions they bring with them from other games, notable D&D. "You must unlean what you have learned" is a real thing here. New players just accept things for what they are while experienced D&Ders assume things are supposed to work out the way they do in D&D and that the game is somehow wrong when they don't. I'll dig it up. It can be very dead;y, as the setting models the cinematic Samurai genre, so it's even more lethal than standard RQ/BRP. It might not be bad for Jedi as ligthsaber combat had Kendo roots.

I think what happens is that instead of seeing the Eastern Ying-Yang harmony in balance thing that it was based on, they see a more Eternal Champion/D&D thing with both sides being extremes with balance in the middle -probably because that was was they were familiar with. It was entertaining but frustrating. He brought a lot of baggage to the table based on past D&D experience that didn't apply in D6. That happens quite a bit. I used to tell him that no matter how good he got he'd never be a star destroyer, because he would look at most opposition and challenged as being a matter of needing more experience. He didn't grasp the concept that a character is never going to be able to deal or (or take) the sort of damage that say, an AT-AT could. But in D&D a PC could get the same AC, hit points and damage as anything else, with enough levels, magic and so on. There was one adventure where the group nearly got captured/killed by Ventress because he wanted to finish looting the dungeon (actually a Sith outpost) despite the separatists looking for the place and being a few hours behind the PCs. He only left because the Clone Trooper commander who was with him told him flat out that there was nothing the Clones could do against Ventress. As it was she shot his ship three times before he made the jump to lightspeed. Much the same way the had for the last 25 years of gaming with him. He wasn't a bad guy, just that he tended toward seeing things from his point of view, and just assume the players characters were in the right because they were the player characters.Nor was he the only one who brought in ideas that might have worked eleswere but not in Star Wars. Probably Ebay. The thing has been out of print for years. I can look up rules for you if you like. Basically what it did was allow the critical chance to be raised separately from the main skill. Thus masters of a skill could use iit to perform an action perfectly. There might have been an option of spending POW points to boost it too. It would make characters very powerful.

Oh, it's been awhile. If I recall correctly the project orginally was going to be a new take on RQ2's QuestWorld. Questworld was a shared, open world that people could make submissions to as an alternative to the closed world of Glorantha. There was a boxed set with maps, scenarios and some basic ideas of what to do. Questworld got dropped after RQ3 came out. Years later some of us on the form revived the idea of a shared world and it began. Sadly, the sort of frazzled due to conflicting ideas and lack of any central authority to oversee the project, and have the final say or what got in and what didn't.. Stuff like somebody suggesting where the elves would be , someone else not wanting any elves on the world whatsoever, and someone else coming up with an entirely new take on elves. No one could make the call one way or the other with everything coming down to who argues best or majority rule, all of which being subject to change as other project members got caught up and put in their own two cents. Think of a dozen things like that going on, simultaneously, every day. Ultimately I think people left it one by one to as they became disenchanted with the direction it was taking. Some made their own settings. I think the few who stuck around to the end renamed it the Green or some such, but by then it wasn't much of a shared world anymore. At least that's my recollection. Of coruse, that was over a decade ago, so I probably forgot most of it, and misremembered much of the rest. In my opinion it was, and still is, a good idea, but "too many cooks".

It depends on when you want things to get more difficult. The most likely places are 50% (i.e. professional level), 75% (veteran/expert level), 90% (mastery) or 100%. Not necessarily. Assuming that 2d6+6 represents above average PCs, then they would have above average caps It's a soft cap. You can exceed it but it bets tougher. This is similar to how in RQ3 you needed to roll over 100% to improve skill that were 100% or higher, which limited ultra high skills to those with a positive category modifier. BTW, that makes 100% look like a nice place for the limit. But then it all depends on if you want/need such a rule, and at what power level a game is at. For some groups and characters it's a non-limit as they might never get skills that high. For others it could show up during chargen. For me, if I were to use such a rule I'd probably keep the improvement chance the same (the attribute) but just reduce the improvement from 1d4+1% to a flat 1% and eliminate the 1% flat improvement for failed rolls, past the cap. So once someone hits the "threshold" improvement would slow down, and putting rolls into other skill becomes a better option.

Another batch of aircraft stats for comparison. F-5E Tiger II Pilot 39 0% ±6 1944 65 65 59 F-20 Tigershark Pilot 42 10% ±10 2372 65 65 65 Piper J-3C-65 Cub Pilot 13 0% ±1 156 35 35 33 Bede BD-5B Pilot 20 5% ±1 417 28 28 34 Bede BD-5J Microjet Pilot 23 5% ±3 593 32 32 17 Beechcraft T-34A Pilot 18 0% ±1 339 45 45 47 Beechcraft T-34C Pilot 20 #N/A ±2 442 47 47 58 MIG-17F Pilot 32 5% ±6 1279 61 61 55 Mirage IIIE Pilot 44 0% ±6 2624 68 68 62 Mirage 5F Pilot 44 0% ±5 2624 72 72 62 Mirage F1 Pilot 44 5% ±7 2611 70 70 65 Mirage 2000 Pilot 44 5% ±7 2609 72 72 67 Mirage 4000 Pilot 45 10% ±12 2730 74 74 76 IAI Kfir C7 Pilot 45 5% ±8 2725 69 69 66 MiG-21bis Pilot 43 5% ±8 2429 67 67 63 MiG-23MLD Pilot 46 5% ±9 2791 73 73 71 5% MiG-25P / MiG-25PD Pilot 49 -5% ±6 3350 84 84 77 MiG-29 Pilot 45 10% ±11 2736 73 73 73 MIG-31 Pilot 49 0% ±9 3350 85 85 83 Harrier GR.1 Pilot 32 5% ±12 1295 66 66 68 Harrier GR.3 Pilot 33 5% ±12 1313 67 67 68 BAC Lighting F Mk.6 Pilot 44 5% ±8 2607 76 76 73 DH Vampire FB.6 Pilot 29 5% ±3 985 61 61 47 DH. 115 Vampire T. Mk. 11 Pilot 29 5% ±3 972 61 61 47 Canberra B. (I) Mk 6 Pilot 29 0% ±3 1039 77 77 63 Canberra B. (I) Mk 8 Pilot 29 0% ±3 1006 77 77 63 Harrier GR.3 Pilot 33 #DIV/0! ±13 1313 66 66 68 Sea King H.A.S. Mk I Pilot 16 5% ±2 257 65 65 78 747-200B Pilot 30 0% ±5 1049 102 102 93 747-8 Pilot 30 0% ±5 1042 104 104 97 C-47B-DK Skytrain Pilot 19 0% ±1 402 73 73 45 Learjet 28 Pilot 29 0% ±4 987 64 64 53 Learjet 31 Pilot 30 0% ±5 1079 65 65 55 Learjet 55 Pilot 29 0% ±6 973 63 63 56 A-10C Thunderbolt II Pilot 26 0% ±4 788 77 77 65 Chengdu J-20A Pilot 45 10% ±12 2757 79 79 81 F-84 Thunderjet Pilot 30 0% ±3 1118 67 67 53 F-100D Super Sabre Pilot 36 0% ±6 1660 72 72 65 F-101B Voodoo Pilot 40 0% ±7 2038 77 77 73 F-102A Delta Dagger Pilot 34 5% ±7 1483 70 70 65 F-105D Thunderchief Pilot 43 0% ±7 2501 74 74 70 F-106A Delta Dart Pilot 45 5% ±7 2740 74 74 70 P-47D-40 Thunderbolt Pilot 26 0% ±1 766 66 66 72 P-51D Mustang Pilot 26 0% ±2 793 59 59 71 Yak-9U Pilot 26 0% ±2 782 56 56 69 F4U-4 Corsair Pilot 26 0% ±2 801 64 64 75 F-111F Aardvark Pilot 47 5% ±6 2966 84 84 78 F-117A Nighthawk Pilot 32 5% ±4 1228 79 79 68 F6F-5 Hellcat Pilot 25 0% ±2 702 62 62 72 Spitfire Mk Vb Pilot 24 5% ±2 670 55 55 69 Bf 109G-6 Pilot 25 0% ±2 717 55 55 68 X-62 Vista Pilot 43 10% ±11 2423 71 71 72 Cessna Citation CJ2+ Pilot 27 5% ±6 864 57 57 51 Cirrus Vision V50 G2 Pilot 24 5% ±3 643 54 54 40 Phenom 100EV Pilot 28 0% ±3 958 56 56 43 Diamond D-JET Pilot 24 5% ±4 651 52 52 40 Antonov An-225 Mriya Pilot 28 -5% ±2 949 116 116 99 SPAD XIII Pilot 15 0% ±1 214 39 39 43 SPAD S. XIII Pilot 15 0% ±1 236 40 40 46

I've been given this a bit of thought, and had a few ideas. First off, I think we need to consider how altitude and differences in altitude would likely play out in game, since this is an RPG and not a flight simulator. To that end I can think of three basic situations that would crop in in play. The Ambush: This is where somebody is flying around when they get "bounced" by someone else. In this circumstance the initiative lies with the attacker, who mostly gets to pick when, where, from what direction, from above or below, etc as restricted by the relative capabilities of each side's aircraft, and might even be determined beforehand in a set piece encounter.The defender actions mostly consist of countering or limited the attacker's advantage by spotting the attacker visual or through devices (radar?). The Intercept: This is a situation where someone is flying somewhere and someone else must scramble or divert aircraft to try reach them before they get to their objective or escape. In this instance altitude is more of a matter of the with the relative merits of the aircraft. as limited initial potions and speed, This would be were ceiling and time to climb would matter. It's more of a beat the clock chase with the interceptors hoping to intercept before the target reaches the finish line. THis covers most millie attacks too. The Crash: This is where an aircraft loses power or suffers damage that causes it to fall from the sky. In such cases altitude matters mostly in terms of time- that is how long will it take for the aircraft to reach the ground, can they find a good place to put down in time and so on. Piloting skill and glide ratio would be important to land the airplane, and repair skills might help to fix an engine in some cases. The Take Off: This is when somebody has to reach a certain altitude within a limited amount of time to avoid hitting an obstacle. Here is is all about the aircraft's ability to climb, the pilot's ability to push the aircraft (=skill), the height of the obstacle, and the time available. I think the above, with some variations covers most of situations that would come up in a role playing game. Now let's see about addressing them while trying to keep things simple. Option 1 - Altitude Levels: This would mean introducing Altitude Levels into the game. Each level would be a set height (say 100 ft or 500 feet, or more likely 100 o r 200 meters), although the actual values could be abstract or increasing like with relative speed, as in play it would mostly come down to relative altitude between aircraft for range purposes. For climbing we could use ACC as thrust-mass ratio and power-mass-ratio are both good indicators, perhaps modified by wing loading, and g limits (both of which I already use to determine handling, so a Climb stat could be worked out). A pilot could use ACC to change altitude instead of speed to climb, or in addition to speed when diving, basically trading off Altitude for ACC, or even Rated Speed for Altitude. Aircraft would be (mostly) limited by their ceiling. This would mean tracking each aircraft altitude all the time, rules and limits for changing altitude, and what the effects would be on ranges in combat, what weapons could be brought to bear, and some other stuff I have't considered yet, like stall speed. Option 2 - Simplified Altitude Bands: This would introduce altitude as altitude bands, say about 1 mile or 2000 meters high each. Basically we divide the sky into a half dozen or so bands that the aircraft fly in. Aircraft in the same band ignore height in play, and those above or below used simplified version of the climbing/diving rules from Option 1 to change altitude by about 1 band per game round. Ceiling and ACC would still matter but we wouldn't need as much bookkeeping. We's lose some of the fine tuning, but it probably wouldn't matter so much. Option 3 - Abstract E-M Theory: Okay the idea here is to simply things down to the bare essentials. So what we would need would be to: Note the relative positions of each aircraft and how much of an advantage that provides. Aircraft limits in terms of ceiling and performance. To do this lets delve into the idea of Energy Maneuver Theory where they consider altitude to be potential energy that can be traded off for performance in a dogfight. Now if we did that we could treat Altitude like a pool of Power Points/Fate Points that could only be spent to improve aircraft performance. When spent they are used up and gone (and the aircraft is on the deck). Pilots could gain more Altitude Points, if they have time by climbing, say ACC points per minute, but their pool of points would be capped by their aircraft's ceiling stat. Likewise aircraft would have range limits in terms of Altitude Points. So they can't shoot guns at a target that's ten miles above them. Pilots about to engage in an areal battle could get a skill roll to earn a few extra points, and dogfighting could be abstracted as opposed piloting (or even opposed rated speed for boom & zoom fights) to earn E-M points. The abstract method seems the simplest but I don't think it looses much in terms of game play situations. Player would just get some extra points to spend that reflect altitude, without the need for 3D positioning. What does anyone else think?

Base x5 would be the logical choice which would mean a 5% difference in max per point of attribute. I'm not so sure about the merits of such a cap though. HARN has one, but but HARN has slower development making the cap sort of moot. THe cap would make attributes more important though.

Yeah, you could. Probably something like 100%+Stat. So Someone with CHA would roll against 115%. But, that would functionally be the same as add CHA to the improvement rolls, but require slightly more math that what Loz suggested. For example: Skill 60%, CHA 15 would be: 100 +15 CHA ------------ 115 -60% Skill ---------------- 55% chance to improve as opposed to: Roll over 60 = 40% chance to improve +15 CHA = Roll over 45, for a 55% chance to improve. Loz wins again! (Good title for a movie or slogan for a T-Shirt).

Yup. Oh, that also means that someone could trade off speed for altitude. Basically by taking negative ACC For instance, lets say you are flying around at 5000 feet in your Sopwith Camel at 180 kph/MOV21, Rated Speed 14 when your engine conks out. You could pull up on the stick and turn some of that speed into altitude but since the engine isn't working you'd wouldn't get the speed back until you started to dive. Yeah, you're quite right about that. Not only was the altitude a problem to get to, but by the time something actually managed to reach the 20-25km that the SR-71 was flying at, the Blackbird would have been 20-100km further along. But, I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible and 3D combat gets complicated fast. Maybe something like Altitude Bands could work? The SR-71 could be up at Extremely High (EH) and only other aircraft/weapons rated for EH could reach it? And then all these jet's max speeds are only obtainable at higher altitudes, the ACC only with afterburners, and so on. It's tricky to figure out just where to draw the line for game rules; what to include and what to leave out.

Good points. Plus it would make sense for those flying CAP to be higher up. That would mean that someone in a dive could get up to 10 points of ACC from gravity (1G=10ACC) to bounce someone below. Hmm, they would also be able to exceed Rated Speed a little when diving.

Possibly, not so sure in a RPG context how often that would come up, except with missiles. But it would be easy to add and something based on the Flight Levels used in real aviation, where 1 level = 100 ft might work out well with Rated Speed and Acceleration. Range would be another one I could add. Again, possibly. I think for most purposes ACC would be close enough, since I used the thrust to weight ratio for ACC. Maybe pilots could trade off some ACC for Altitude Levels (or vice versa, come to think of it). Good question. I don't think there is any official correlation listed, so I used regression and curve fitting and would up with: Rated Speed = 1.39*(MOV^0.44). or approximately: MOV Rated Speed 0 0 1 1 2 2 4 3 9 4 15 5 23 6 34 7 47 8 62 9 80 10 100 11 123 12 148 13 176 14 207 15 241 16 278 17 318 18 361 19 407 20 455 21 508 22 563 23 621 24 683 25 748 26 816 27 888 28 964 29 1045 30 1131 31 1222 32 1318 33 1419 34 1527 35 1640 36 1760 37 1887 38 2021 39 2162 41 2311 42 2469 43 2635 44 2811 46 2996 47 3191 48 3397 50 3615 51 3844 52 4086 54 4341 55 4610 57 4893 58 5193 60 It doesn't match up exactly with all vehicles, but it does give a rated speed that is within a point of the official values, which is the closest I've been able to get so far. I'll probably need a more complex equation to get a better fit. But we might not need a better fit if its only off by a point. So my Hindenburg is slightly faster than BRP's but then mine has a top speed of 135 KPH as apposed to the cruising speed of 123 KPH. Does it matter all that much in a chase? Probably not as anything moving at a speed where is matters will be rated on the same scale, and anything close in speed will still be close in speed. BTW, based on the travel speeds listed for vehicles it appears that MOV=KPH*67/60 It's definitely some sort of increasing scale to keep the values low and thus playable. It makes sense too, since in a chase it's more about the relative speed between the vehicles than the absolute. That is a 10 KPH difference in speed matters a lot in a foot chase where the average person runs at 25 KPH than it does in a with supersonic jets with an average speed is 2500 KPH.

I was working on statting up aircraft for BRP and was wonder if anyone else would be interested, and if they though that these stats looked good or not. Stats given are mostly the same as in the BRP rules with the addition of EngSTR. EngSTR is a rating of how powerful the aircraft's engines are on the STR table, and are there for future design purposes and for siutations like one vehicle towing another, tugboats, superheroes holding back jets and so forth. EngSTR for propellor aircraft is a bit suspect, and all values could shift by a point or so as I fine tune this. Anyway, here's the sample, does this look like I'm on the right path? Type Skill Rated Speed Handling ACC MOV Armor SIZ HP EngSTR F-16C Block 50 Pilot 43 10% ±12 2432 71 71 73 F-15C Pilot 47 10% ±13 2965 77 77 79 AV-8B Harrier II Plus Pilot 32 5% ±9 1209 69 69 68 A4D-5 / A-4E Skyhawk) Pilot 32 5% ±5 1209 65 65 57 B-52H Pilot 31 -5% ±3 1173 97 97 83 B-17G Pilot 22 0% ±1 516 79 79 83 Boeing 707-120 Pilot 30 0% ±4 1117 88 88 78 SR-71A Pilot 53 0% ±4 3953 91 91 81 LZ-129 Hindenburg Pilot 13 -5% ±1 151 105 105 83 └-cruise speed 12 134 F-86F-40-NA Sabre Pilot 32 5% ±4 1235 64 64 53 F-86 Sabre Mk.6 Pilot 32 5% ±5 1253 64 64 56 MiG-15bis Pilot 32 5% ±5 1236 70 70 62 SAAB J29F Tunnan Pilot 31 5% ±6 1184 60 60 53 SAAB J35F Draken Pilot 45 5% ±7 2736 70 70 65 SAAB JA37 Viggen Pilot 43 5% ±8 2491 74 74 71 SAAB JAS 39C/D Gripen Pilot 42 10% ±10 2345 67 67 66 Supermarine Walrus I Pilot 16 0% ±1 242 56 56 60 Sopwith F.1 Camel Pilot 14 0% ±1 203 37 37 41 Fokker Dr. I Pilot 14 0% ±1 201 36 36 39 PBY-5A Catalina Pilot 18 0% ±1 352 74 74 74 Boeing 314A Clipper Pilot 19 0% ±1 380 84 84 86 Bell 47G-3B Pilot 14 0% ±1 117 45 45 49 C-130H Hercules Pilot 24 -5% ±1 659 91 91 98 C-5M Galaxy Pilot 28 -5% ±3 956 110 110 94 Airbus A380-800 Pilot 29 -5% ±2 1008 115 115 130 Wallis WA-116 Agile Pilot 14 5% ±1 180 26 26 34 Vickers Wave Pilot 16 0% ±1 246 40 40 42 SeaRey (2006) Pilot 15 0% ±1 217 37 37 36 Bell X-1 Pilot 46 5% ±5 2897 62 62 53 F-104G Pilot 45 5% ±8 2746 68 68 64

Works for me.

I know, RQ2 and BRP do the same. I just mentioned this because the OP was wondering about the value of CHA and how to make it more useful. Or even the average of the two.

That's why I liked how category modifiers added to improvement rolls in RQ3. Having a high CHA/APP not only improved your starting score, but added a few percentiles to your improvement rolls with CHA based skills, leading to slightly faster improvement and slighter higher skills throughout the character's career. . Something like adding 1/5th the base score to improvement rolls in Mythras would make all attributes more useful after chargen.

Yeah, a thing with most of the Star Wars RPGs was that the Dark Side would give you some perk for calling on it. Usually a hefty bonus to what you wanted to do. Not really. I did tempt them, but It was more a case of the players failing to grasp the setting, and creating flawed characters who were destined to fail. One player decided to make a force sensitive pirate, despite being warned about it (being force sensitive makes you more at risk to the dark side, and pirates tend to engage in somewhat suspect behavior). Then the player got all caught up in the tech and hardware. Said group were D&D players and were always intimated by the Empire having them outmanned and outgunned (just like in the movies). Group died by fighting when surrounded (they should have surrendered and escaped later), but said player admitted that the NPC Darksider would have turned him by offering him his own Star Destroyer to command. Second failure was even stranger. We were playing in the Clone Wars and said player wrote up a force sensitive character, and was surprised when Yoda refered to have him trained as a Jedi, for much the same reasons as why Anakin was denied training, plus this guy was 20 years old. Player was told out of character that much like in the films events would happen to would lead to the character being trained down the road. But the player still wanted to bear a grudge against Yoda and the Jedi. Not a good start for a potential Jedi PC. Later of the PC found a lightsaber off of a dead Jedi, got incredible possessive about it despite it not really belonging to him, and then wanted murderous vengeance on the NPC villian who took it from him, despite being warned about how it could lead to the Dark Side, leading to the player becoming even more resentful of Yoda and the Jedi. Basically he was like Anakin on steroids. All very puzzling as everyone at the table, including said player, had seen the prequels. Palpatine was actually using the PC as a pawn to undermine the Jedi. He'd tell the PC how he agreed with his suspicious of the Jedi and that he'd do more if only he had a good right hand man he could trust. One of the other players choked on his soda when I dropped the "If only I had someone I could trust to act as my hand." line. Then Papatine send the PC out on a mission, and if he did good, praise him publialy over the Jedi, and if he did bad, well he had a lightsaber so the Jedi must have failed. The group broke up due to work schedules, but it was a toss up as to who was going to turn him to the Dark Side. Dooku could do it by offering him revenge of the NPC who "stole hs lighsaber" while explaining how the situation was all a misunderstanding and not of this was what he wanted, etc.etc. Palpatine could have done it by humoring the PC and slowly making him into the Emperor's Hand, which was the way things were headed. The PC never admitted to (or even thought) that he had ever done anything wrong and so everything was always someone else's fault and he never addressed any of his shortcomings. Most of the other players thought the player was trying to go dark. Well one of the biggest benefits is Self Control. Darksider's are always ruled by their passions and tend to do things that might not be for the best. Kinda like the kid who eats a big bag of candy in one sitting. He wanted to do it at the time, but he probably regents it later on when he doesn't feel so good. So a lot of the benefit of the light side would be mastery over emotion and impulses. You might even want to consider Ki Skills. That was a thing in the old RQ Land of the Ninja supplement. Basically it represents the perfection of mind and body and turns the critical chance with a specific skill into it's own skill. But then there are force abilties that might boost skills.

Notaccording to the extended contest examples,. Note I'm talking about that as opposed to regular combat. Oh, and if armor applies then you'd would need regular damage or else someone with 6 points of armor can't lose. One of the things I don't like about the extended conflicts is that the damage is 1d6 with no adjustment due to the difference in skill. This makes it impossible for someone who is markedly better than an opponent to defeat someone quickly. Someone with a stat of 11 is going to take on average 3 losses to defeat, no matter how skilled their opponent, or the actual skill rolls. Personally I think it would be better if the damage take was tied more closely to the outcome of the opposing skill rolls. Opposed rolls is s something that games not based on D100 do better. Games like Pendragon, FUDGE, Prince Valiant, D20 3.0+ all do opposed contests better. But not well implemented with the extended conflicts. There no example of modifiers for such things, or what aspect of the contest to apply them to. Do they add to your skill, take away from the opponent's or do they modifier one of your die pools? There is no sort of standardized suggestions. Now I could see some nice options, like maybe armor adds to the die pool, prolonging the conflict, damage die based on skill, but there isn't much there. Would the noise boost the sneak skill, reduce the spot/listen skill of the opponent, or the relevant die pools. Speaking on which should the player get a die pool? I mean once the guard hears something, the contest is sort of over, or at least changes to a different type of contest where the player has to convince the guard that it was a normal noise or just part of the guard's imagination ("Meow?") Would you apply the adjustment to the gambling skill or the conflict/hit point pool? But at what point do you get a bonus or a penalty. And is it automatic (Battleships can capsize and sink). And what about bailing water, or the actions of the other people aboard? Look, I get that you like this approach, and that fine. But if we all agreed on things there would be no reason for you to have written your own game in the first place. That's sort of the point in having other games, we can all pick what rules we prefer. I'd prefer to do things differently that's all. I'm sure there are game mechaics that I'm fond of that others do like,skill category modifiers,for instance. C'est la vie.

No I'm not, I was referring to what the abstraction of Hit Points were in D&D/AD&D. No I haven't, but I have read the rules. Let's keep Revolution D100 out of this as no one has mentioned it yet, but quoting from the M-SPACE rules: "Conflict Pools work like hit points, but for any conflict. They are based on characteristics and used one at a time." So my aversion to them as being hit points reskiined is valid, since that is what they are. You can say that it is modelling something other than old D&D style combat but functionally it works the same. I find it much more limiting that BRP as you lose the options of parry, dodge, etc as everything boils down to attack roll vs AC, and damage off of hit points. Everything just comes down to one ability score. Tactics, actions, none of that matters. Skill only matters for the attack roll. It's less creative that D&D because at least in D&D there were multiple things that added to the attack (STR or DEX bonus, magic weapons, level bonus, spells, situation modifiers, class and racial modifiers), AC (DEX, Armor Worn, class bonus, magic armor, rings, spells situational modifiers, damage (by weapon type augmented by STR magic etc.)or hit points (hit die rolls, level, CON bonus, magic items, spells, previous damage). That's not mentioning the various immunities and special cases that existed in D&D. But M-SPACE Extended Conflicts comes down to one skill for the attack, one d6 for the damage and and one to two attributes for the hit points. No options, no tactics, no defense, just opposed attack roll and 1d6 damage. Does it matter if you got armor in a duel? No. Does it matter if you got any good points that could be important when trying to persuade someone in an argument? No. Does it matter if there is any background noise when you try to sneak past a guard? No. Does it matter if you got one hundred times the chips as your opponent in a poker game, no. Does it matter if you are in a rowboat or USS Iowa when Boating Through a Storm? No. Everything boils down to an opposed skill roll with an attribute as hit points. And attributes are mostly fixed. The actual degree of success doesn't even factor into things, all wins work the same. Yes, some people like this but that doesn't mean every does or that they must. I do not care for it, don't consider it a good feature, and won't recommend it as one. Prince Valiant handled this sort of thing simpler and better. No more questionable than M-SPACE. HW/HQ at least has augments, the ability to determine the amount of ability points wagered on the roll, the ability to handle groups, differences in success levels, advantage reversals and the ability to regain points. I'll take HW/HQ's extended contests over M_SPACE's any day. I think I'd take Prince Valiant's extended contest rules over HW's too, Greg really did a good job with those game mechanics in PV.