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Sure it could. Just look at how much "crunch" got dropped between RQ2 and CoC1. The 16 page BRP rulebook from 1980 really boiled down the game into Attributes, hit points,skill percentages, damage, and the resistance table. The biggest obstacle, IMO would be that BRP isn't all that well set up for opposed rolls.

As far as I know, they didn't come to any arrangement. What was revealed/explained was that you cannot copy write game mechanics. Yo can copy write text,and the name brand (i.,. RuneQuest) but not the actual game mechanics. This means that it's legal to virtually copy an RPG so long as you do not copy the text verbatim. or use the same name. Whether or not it is right to do so is another matter. Anyway, at the time MRQ was made, the rights for the name RuneQuest had been picked up by Greg Stafford, apparently after they had lapsed, and he licensed out the name to Mongoose in an arrangement that let them produce an RPG named RuneQuest. That is what opened the gates, as it were. Chaosium didn't do anything about it because there really was very little they could have done, without the RQ brand name. About thier only legal option was to try and sue Mongoose for copying some of their game mechanics, but that would have meant trying to win against the precedent ruling (actually make in a case about a computer RPG, I believe), which would have been an expense, uphill battle. Probably so expensive that it would have been a Pyrrhic victory, costing more to win in court than the RPG line would bring back in profits. Even if they had owned the RQ name brand their only realistic option would have ben to get Mongoose to call their game something other than RuneQuest (or something deemed too close to RuneQuest) So, technically speaking, anybody could produce and market a copy of virtually any RPG (even D&D) with out without consent of that game's publisher, regardless of copy write, OGL or whatever, so long as they do not swipe the name or text verbatim. At least from a legal standpoint. Again, form a moral standpoint is something else.

For someone like us, technologically, that's true of just about any planet. Our spacecraft are 90%+ fuel. But if we lived there, we'd probably be able to work something out. Maybe something piggy-backed on an airplane. Yeah, but if you're able to make a Dyson Sphere, a beanstalk would be easy. But then you might have something more advanced, like a tractor/presser beam or an artificial/anti-gravity device. Even something like a really long ramp could do the job.

Oh, it's realistic-it's just way out of our comfort zone to deal with. That space science in general. As far as the Dyson Sphere goes it's hard to say why someone would need one. I can't understand why someone would need a smart phone. Want one sure, but need one? It's been said that anyone sufficiency advanced to be able to manufacture a Dyson Sphere wouldn't need to. The big perk to a Dyson Sphere is normally considered to be the energy. Since it surrounds a star it captures all of it's emitted energy, which could be used for various (hi-powered) projects-probably stuff long distance space travel, planetary engineering, or some other such big scale project that we're probably too primitive to figure out yet.

Escape velocity is not all that much of a real factor though. No real ships do it all at once. Besides, I would think that any culture sufficiently advanced enough to make a Dyson Sphere would have (big) space elevators.

'cuz I don't know how to build one! I probably couldn't afford to have one built for me either. It sounds a lot like a Dyson Sphere and Dyson products are pricey.

Plus with Trek there are a few RPGs already out there for it that end up competing with whatever new version comes out. For example, I for one am not all that fond of d20 and so would probably prefer one of the earlier versions to whatever Modiphus puts out. I've also read that the licensing for an SF series can really bite into the profits. Apparently the game has to really sell to be worth it for the RPG company. I could see someone producing a fanbook, and posting it for free, and I don't think that would hurt Modiphius at all. If someone is that big a fan of M-SPACE or don't like the official RPG that much then it not going to change what they buy. What I think is more likely and probably more helpful would be simply to take bit and pieces of SF lore and tech from a setting and write them up for M-SPACE. For instance lightsabers, transporters/travel mat, warp drives, etc.

One problem with adapting M-SPACE for specific settings is the legalities involved. It's one thing if somebody posts something like an M-SPACE Phaser table or some such, but something else entirely to do an official M-SPACE STAR TREK supplement.

That's basically what you have to do, toss out what doesn't work (for a setting) and replace it with what does. But it could mean a bit of work to get everything to work out right. For Trek I'd probably do up tables for Trek styles weapons, FTL and sublight drives (sublight would probably just by SPEED/20, so A SPEED of 10 would be a sublight speed of 0.5c) and so on.

Or sure, artificially produced or terraformed planets can get around all the real physics, depending on how advanced the people behind it. I've done it in Trek campaigns- sometimes retroactively when I discovered something that would have made the planet uninhabitable-after the fact. Yes, Trek is is own sub-genre. Most SF franchises are. One of the "drawbacks" to M-SPACE is that it ends up dictating the type of SF you use, just by setting up the the way things work. Its' not a bad thing, really. Just about every high tech RPG does it, and kinda has to. For instance Traveller uses jump drives and lacks FTL communication which causes things to work a certain way, and that way is different than the way Star Trek or Star Wars works. But is practically unavoidable for a SF RPG to do otherwise. But it does make it tougher to use M-SPACE for setting such as Trek or Star Wars. Not impossible, just tougher.

Different, yes, but not entirely different. They still have to be able to take the stresses associated with moving in a high-G environment. Yes, but the shape would still have to be viable in the environment. So the creature would probably have to be strong enough to withstand the forces being exerted upon it. If it is just using inner pressure to counteract out pressure, then it will still need a way to handle changes in pressure when it gets moved around. Even if it havs some sort of anchor that allows it to keep in the same pressure zone, it would have to be strong enough to resist being moved. It's why I kinda think a sumbarine ring hull structure might be best. The bones and even skin could be of a strong advanced material (something like organic carbon fiber), and it could have multiple blow holes in various parts ofit's body that it could open up to quickly equalize internal and external pressure. Hmm, come to think of it, if so many parts of the body could be opened like that, functions like digression and reproduction could be done eternally. Perhaps there could even by some sort of sybotic lifeform that fires in and out of the airwhale? We're probably going to need something for the whale to feed on too.

No, but Class M planets would have to be in a habitable zone. Not necessarily a main sequence star's habitable zone, but some sort of habitable zone. Otherwise they wouldn't be Class M.

Yes, it is rather complicated, but since it is assumed to be a Class M planet then must have an atmosphere that will help shield it and retain heat. Its' kinda like knowing the answer to a math problem before you start work on the problem. What you end up with is already given, so the other factors have to work out in such a way that you end up with a Class M planet. So it can only be so big (or small) and so far away from (or close to ) it's star, must have a certain amount of gravity (but not too much) etc.etc. Although, if I were going to use this planet I'd be tempted to give it a small but very dense core ( say something like depleted uranium surrounded by lead) and make the planet a little smaller.

Solar energy. Ice reflects more solar energy than liquid water. So if the water world is entirely water on the surface it will absorb more solar energy than if it had ice caps. So the planet would have a more energetic climate. So the planet could have big storms.

It depends a lot on where the planet is situated relative to it's star. To be an Earth-like (Class "M" or Minshara class), a planet has to receive about the same amount of energy per area s star that Earth does. This means that it has to be closer or further from the star depending on how much energy said star emits. That will determine how hot the planet is and if it can have liquid or frozen water or not. The size of the planet will and its density play a big factor since it will determine the gravity, which will determine the minimum molecular weight retained. Since a solid water world would be less dense than one with a rocky core, it would need to be bigger (a radius or around 15,600 km) in order to have about 1g gravity. Now since water absorbs more energy than ice, so the water world would be hotter than earth and have a lot more energetic weather.

Pressure is relative but only to a point. That is on Earth is will only get to be so great. On a gas giant it can get to be much greater. I'd also suspect that the ballon brought down to 1000' below the surface of the sea would pop from the pressure on the way down, and could not be filled up with a scuba tank. I also think that if a flat balloon were brought down and then inflated the sudden difference in pressure would break it.

Sure it is. When wind or some other change hits the airship the frame and outer "skin" have to absorb the impact. Otherwise it would pop and leak. This works both ways, too, if the pressure inside gets too much higher than the outside pressure that can also break it. Thats why real world airships have a pressure ceiling that they can't operate above. Now I'd expect a creature would be able to equalize pressure somehow, but just how much and how fast would depend on how strong it is. Well most theories on life forms on a high-G world go with the idea of a squat, thick lifeform. It depends a lot of how great the gravity and pressure are, but the shape can make a difference too. A creature shaped like a pressure spekere, made of a steel like substance could probably do fairly well.

Well that's your interpretation, but I'm not sure how well that will work in play. One problem with it is that your balloon whale is sickly for no good reason, as would be most avians. Realistically volume and mass are related. Oh, and I finally found the stuff from the bestiary!

Probably not. If the gravity is strong enough to compress hydrogen to the point where it is denser than water, then the whale would also be subject to that gravity and wind up compressed down into a denser ball of matter. That why I think that a lifeform that evolved in such an environment would probably be a dense, heavily reinforced creature that could withstand the heavy gravity. I think what we need to make the "flying airbag" thing work is a smaller (lower gravity) planet with a dense atmosphere. Something like Kelpler-138b. But then we don't really have to go that far to use it in a RPG.

Yeah. I think it would be sudden shifts due to winds and such that would probably do it in. Basically what I am thinking of is how fragile an airship would be in an atmosphere that is that much denser, and with higher gravity. If something goes wrong, things wouldn't be very forgiving. Frankly I think the submarine model might do better than the airship model. Something with a strong outer shell and bone structure that could "dive" into the gas giant.

I'd probably go with what we know about dirigibles and use that as a basis. For instance an airship will have a volume about 1000 times it mass (since hydrogen and helium are so light, you need a lot of it to get enough lift to counteract the weight of the creature.). So if you wanted a dirigible whale, that had the same mass as a whale, you'd want to give it about 1000 times the volume (that would be about +80 to size for purposes such as being hit), and make it about ten times the length, width, and depth (X/Y/Z) of a whale. Scientifically, I'm not sure if such a creature could exist. I suspect that the high gravity and pressure of a gas giant would probably destroy such a creature. But it's interesting enough to try and rationalize.

Except it wouldn't have the same SIZ as a whale, since it would be a lot lighter. Hollow is more than just a description.

That's interesting, but what do you do if you want something that doesn't match up with an existing creature?

I'll starting hunting for the files. I know I got them, just have to figure what hard drive they are on. What I think you really want is the "Critter Fitter" scaling spreadsheet.

We were mostly working on starting up real world animals and dinosaurs so we had a bit more to go on, including some illustrations. But we did have the SIZ table to help. In fact I kinda used it as the basis for everything. The SIZ table in BRP is the one from Call of Cthulhu, which in turn is based off the SIZ table in RQ3, but has some errors. The RQ3 SIZ table was in turn based off of the one from the Superworld Boxed Set, with some modifications at the high and low end. Anyway, in the SIZ table, SIZes from 8-88 follow a doubling progression, where each doubling of mass is worth +8 SIZ . Note that this is by mass, not height. So if you magically grew a man to twice his normal height, you'd actually raise his mass to eight times his norm, or +24 SIZ. We used the same progression for the other attributes (mostly STR and CON) so as to have everything working on the same scale. We even did that with toxins using the LD50 value to determine the POT. So for us, we looked at it as follows: STR was the amount that could be lifted 50% of the time (per the SIZ table). Some creatures might not be able to lift things. Realistically most creatures can push or pull much more weight than they can lift, so that figure should be higher than their STR. STR was based on SIZ and equal to 2/3 SIZ plus a modifier based on the general type of creature. THe 2/3rds is because in real life muscle power is proportional to mass^(2/3). There might have been ad addtional modfier for the creatures's diet, but I'd have to check, it's been so long. CON for us was strictly stamina, health, immunity and recuperative ability. How much weight you can stack on a creature is more a function of SIZ (well technically tensile strength, but STR in game is mostly about muscle, not bone. It takes quite a bit of weight to crush a person, so by that measurement human CON would be a lot higher than 10. CON was also based on 2/3 SIZ plus a modifier. Oh, and we matched poisons against Hit Points rather than CON, since SIZ plays a major factor in real life. SIZ was the creature's mass (weight in most cases =, too). For creatures made out of flesh and blood, SIZ was also a good measure of the creatures volume. But there were some exceptions-mostly magical stuff. For instance, if we wanted to do up a bronze figure like Talos from Jason and the Argonauts, we'd apply a modifier to SIZ based on how heavy the material used was (in this case bronze has a specific gravity of about 7.4-8.9 depending on type, so we'd be looking at a modifier in the 23-25 range). INT was on the same scale used in RQ3. However as a rough guideline (meaning I hadn't worked out a good way to factor it into the STR calculation yet) the creatures average INT reduced STR. So, generally speaking, a SIZ 16 Gorilla would be stronger than a SIZ 16 human DEX was mostly agility, and reaction speed. This was mostly determined by body type, with a modifier for SIZ. Generally speaking the bigger the creature got, the lower the DEX, snce it would take that much longer for it to react. The modifier was fairly slight though. POW was spirit, since that's what it's defined as. This was mostly determined by INT, the body type, with a modifier for SIZ (bigger critters tended to have a higher POW in game-probably to keep the PCs fron taking them out too easily with magic) We didn't bother with APP, since we mostly weren't working on sentient species that PCs might find attractive.