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With something like this is boils down to two things. The first is what your objectives are, and the second is what the existing game mechanics are suited towards. Each game system has things it's good at and things that it is poor at. Unfortunately, BRP is poor and lacks the "beat the difficulty" game mechanic that your idea sorta needs to work. With most other RPGs it's much easier- you just assume that the opposition rolled the average result and use the opposed roll rules. But that doesn't work in BRP since everyone is rolling under their skill, and they don;t generate a total.

That's pretty much what RoleMaster did. Skill rating were added to the roll and the result compared to a target number. 100 was the default target number, since that way a characters skill rating was their normal chance of success. RM also used "open-ended" rolls, where resultsd of 96+ got to roll again and add to the total, thus allow characters a chance to pull off very difficult things. To adopt that in BPR the GM would simply need to add 100% to the opponent's skill to get the Target Number. The drawback is that the math is a bit slower.

What you could do is to separate rolling low from the critical and special and instead use the ones die. Any successful result that ends in a 0 or 5 is a special success. Any successful result that ends in odd doubles ("11", "33", "55", "77") is a crtical. This will give you percentages close to the core rules, and is easy to figure out during play. I think it is easier just to take the special success chance for the skill (i.e. skill divided by 5) and cross reference that up on the standard resistance table. No need to get too fancy. Or, if you don't mind dropping percentile dice, you could go with btuner's idea of D20+rating (on a 1-20 scale). If you did do that, you could drop specials and critical and instead tie the results directly to the difference between the target number and the roll. So if the player wins by 5 he does 5 damage, and so on.

I'm a fan of the old SAGA system that TSR used for Marvel and Dragonlance, and think it's a good way to go, but somewhat problematic to apply in BRP. One approach you might want to try is to "zero out" the average opposition. In other words, when the PCs are fighting against typical foes, they don't have to subtract anything. That way, most of the time you can just go with straight rolls. The subtract from method has some difficulties. For instance if the opponent skill rating is very high then the players skills are going to drop close to zero at some point. So you will need to figure out what you want to do in those cases. Plus the subtraction will reduce the PCs chances of critical, and special, while increasing their chances of fumbling- while the NPCs will be immune. So you might want to change the critical and special rules for your method, to make them independant of the opponent modifier. What you might want to do is use the Resistance Table. It's actually a perfect way to do just what you want to do without over complicating things. What it does, is set it up so that if the skills are equal the PC has a 50% chance of success, and then adjusts from there based on relative skill scores. Which is pretty much what you are going to want for a method like your.

And Elric! was a updated version of Strombringer which did use attribute-derived skill levels, since it had skill category modifiers. I actually did sorta do a "Frankenstein" version of Elric! years ag. I used RQ3 as the basic system and ported over and tweeked the stuff from Elric/Strombringer that was missing in RQ3. It worked very well. RQ3 had a bit more to it that either Strombringer or Elric!, so it helped the non spellcasters a bit more.

Rosen's got a good point. HQ works in a very similar way, and uses a d20. But I think your variant would suffer from HQ's pitfalls as well. Mainly that since everything in HQ is treated the same way, any one ability is as good as any other. That is, in theory, a character could defeat an expert swordsman with his "Basket Weaving"l, "TV trivia", or his "Knowledge of Playboy Bunnies". And while you have a point about name recognition and stuff like attributes affecting the ability draw in players, it's sorta moot with your variant. Your power system is going to make attributes sorta moot as written. I think to really make it work with attributes and other BRP type stuff, the powers need to be integrated with the existing stuff. Pushing the envelope with a RPG is certainly a worthwhile idea. Not only does it help to expand just what you can do with a system, but it helps you to see just where things are going to break down, so you know where to be careful. Plus, a lot of it helps later on with other things. Once you got some idea of scale for things it sort of carries over into different projects, since there will usually be some overlap.

It's an interesting approach, but I'm not too sure it would work in BRP. Also, I'd like to see skill and Intensity (points, stopped, damage dice, etc). separated. First off, it would allow for characters who are powerful but not very skilled, and vice versa. But secondly, I think things like Super STR probably shouldn't have a % score. I really don't like the idea of a character who can lift and throw a truck (or even a battleship if SuperSTR has no effect limits) half of the time, but not be able to the other half. I'd much rather see a power like that just add to the character's existing STR score. Perhaps Super STR @ 100% would double the STR score?

Yup. it's one of my pet peeves with most RPG ship design rules. If the cost for speed is the same for all ships, then big ships will end up faster becuase they have more free space to allocate towards engines. Realistically the reverse is more true, as bigger ships tend to require systems that smaller shisp don't and thus end up with less space available for engines. What I did was to remove the conflict between engine size and speed. Instead you pay for speed without knowing how big the engine is, but the engine gets more expensive the bigger and/or faster the ship is. And I figured that the engine would take up approximately the same percentage of ship volume for all ships, and in a way can be ignored because of that. Except for the game-critical value for speed. Hence it ended up as a stat, without a corresponding physical extension. Hyperspace and Handling went through the same reasoning.

Probably because the math gets slightly more complicated when you deal with modules since it adds another layer to the calculations. It's not much of a difference, but it looks a bit more complicated, and appearances matter with this sort of thing. Still, I for one would like to see a version with engine modules and such. The system you did up is pretty good. I don't think it would work well for every SciFi setting, but it does work for some of them. I could see things like some generic hulls (10 module hull, 15 module hull, etc.) being outfitted for specific duties.

Why not? I was thinking that it would be nice if all the systems could be modules. Speed could be bought as Engines modules, Handling as Maneuvering Thruster Modules and so on. That way you could have one method for everything.

LOL!

I've been thinking of allowing ripostes to be a possible special success. So someone who either knows how to riposte (see below) or has a weapon that has the riposte ability( also see below) could do a riposte as a special success on a parry. Now by "knowing how" I was thinking that for each 20% of skill a character could learn one special maneuver (impale, trip, riposte, sidestep. etc.) with a weapon and could choose which one to do on a special success. Most specials would be for attacks, but some, such as riposte or sidestep, would be used with defense. What I meant about weapons having abilities is similar to how different types of weapons have different specials now. We could just expand it a bit so that each weapon could have a few options on it's specials.

Yeah, but remember in your orginal post you mentioned "the various types of land formations, weather patterns and other advice to help best make the map somewhat believable". Now with fantasy worlds than isn't necessarily the case. But with scifi worlds it is more the general rule.

There are better ones out there, but they are for fantasy worlds. Some of the SciFi RPGs have some good stuff on world building. But with fantasy, a lot of real world stuff doesn't always apply. For instance Glorantha really is flat.

Thats what Death Stars are for.

No it doesn't. Technically speaking, Science Fiction stories just need some bit of science that doesn't exist today. In reality the distinction between fantasy and scifi isn't clear. A lot of suff people consider SciFi is actually Fantasy. Back before the space age, a lo of SciFi was dismissed as Fantasy and that goes back to the origins of Science Fiction (Scientific Romances). Basically, any SciFi story is really a subgenre of Fantasy, as the Science element makes the story a "What If?" scenario.

No, it's not that common. For one thing, since most RPG PDFs are copyrighted they tend to have some sort of protection that prevents converting the file. But for something fan-made it shouldn't be a problem.

That is where converting it to a ereader friendly format helps. Users can adjust the font size and the reader will automatically reformat the text to fit the viewing area.

The best solution for reading something like a ereader would be to use a program such as Calibre to convert the PDF into another format, such a mobi, epub or even txt. Tnen the text would automatically reformat to fit whatever screen it was being viewed on. For something like that, a single column layout is probably best.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Can you, as a GM, make up such an item? Yes. Can such an item be potentially unbalancing? Yes, because you never know just how the players might use the item. As far as the risk of the PC upstaging the rest of the party, well, that can't be helped if you give that PC access to greater abilities than the rest of the group. If they do so or not depends on the player. The points and all that stuff don't really matter. I can show you two characters in HERO, GURPS or whatever built on the same number of points, but who are nowhere near equal in capabilities. As the GM, you will have to decide if the benefits are worth the risks, and also probably come up with a way to undue things if the new ideas mess everything up.

Yeah, or for dealing with thinks like tanks or battleships. There is bound to be a point where Daleks aren't just dealing with other lifeforms but with their combat machines.

Yeah, they are supposed to be uber-Daleks. I don't think it is to cause more pain - Daleks aren't sadistic. They don't enjoy causing pain and suffering. It is just a byproduct of getting rid of vermin. I think the lower power settings are because that is what is needed to do the job. You don't use hand grenades to kill off mice.

Uh, that would be in The Five Doctors. And earlier on there were similar situations. Daleks are slow and deliberate as Christmas, DEX 10. CON in BRP is low even for massive critters, so 15-18? But that armor! 20 kinetic, plus similar protection for 3-4 energy types at least. It takes a hand-placed shaped charge to pierce it, requiring opponents to get up close and personal in order to succeed. Not so. The energy rifles do well in the Classic series, as do the Cybermen. It is only the Daleks in the New Series that are immune to practically everything. Which kinda makes sense as these are the Daleks that we able to fight the Time Lords. I wouldn't say it was spotty. I think some of that is the typical "script immunity" that Sci-Fi heroes tend to enjoy, and which I think we need in BRP for a Doctor Who game, but some of that is that is depending on the Dalke motives and which Daleks one runs into. Early Daleks hated the Thals, and were either indifferent towards everyone else, or wanted to subjugate them. In their first appearance they don't seem to have any animosity towards the Doctor and his companions, but have no qualms about using and discarding them. The weaponry does advance, but that's okay. It also seems to be adjustable. The Daleks don't seem to use full power, probably becuase the overkill would be an illogical waste of energy. My point though is that in a Doctor Who game, you aren't supposed to attack the Daleks, and pretty much any other menace, head on. Doing so is counter tot he spirit of the series, and isn't good for BRP either. It would be like in the old AD&D days when the D&D mynckins went god hunting, killing off all the Deities in the Deities & Demigods book. Sure, you can do it, but that's not the way it's supposed to be handled.

Yeah, I believe I have. Both are a bit overwhelming in BRP. Yeah, high stats, great armor, nasty firepower, etc, but the main problem is that BRP's general tendency towards quick and brutal combat makes these things problematic as far as keeping PCs alive. In the TV series, as well as in the various Doctor Who RPGs that have appeared over the years, things are run so that the PCs don't actually fight these things directly, and things are very forgiving when the PCs do encounter such beings. Most gamers are used to fighting in the RPG, and expect to confront the bad guys in some sort of skirmish. That sort of approach will usually get people killed in Doctor Who.

Playing a character's "intelligence", intelligently can be tricky. It not too bad when the character's INT score is reasonably close to the players, but wide discrepancies cause problems. While everybody can "dumb down" a character, most gamers tend to overdo it, and turn the character into barely functioning morons. It's hard to play a character who isn't very intelligent, but who should still be thinking. One of the best examples I've seen was when a player pretty much uncovered a secret shapeshifter in the group, simply by believing a lie and asking for clarification. The shapeshifter had run off and shapeshifted, leaving all his clothing and gear. The "dumb" character found the stuff and asked the other character why he left all his stuff behind a bush. The "smart" shapeshifter replied that he left it to go hunting, and he hunted better without it. The "moron" then asked him how he hunted better without his spear! The question immediately brought the situation to the attention of the other, "more intelligent" characters who also wanted to hear the answer. "Smartening up" a character is even more tough. We can all turn it off, but we can't really make ourselves any smarter than we already are. Otherwise we would have all aced Calculus, right? A lot of the time, though, everybody can figure certain things out, it just that smart people tend to do so faster. What I did once to handle a very intelligent PC was to spend a lot of my "downtime" thinking about the situations we were in in our campaign, and then run though the various things we could try, figure out what obstacles we would face, and guesstimate what the likely outcome would be. When it we sat down to play and brought up ideas, I had already covered a lot of them, so it looked like my character was thinking things though much faster than everyone else and was way ahead of everybody- even though I had actually spent more time thinking on the problems than everyone else.