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I can accept that. But then some would say the same about FRPGs, or any other genre. That's why there are so many differernt RPGs. That reallyisn't a problem. Or at least it isn't specfic to SciFi. Somebody just has to take a stab at something and people decide if they like it or not. Same as with everything else. And that is why I said SciFi RPGs are a lot of work. They tend to need tech to help sell the setting. It can't be a sword and a crossbow, it has to be a lightsaber and a bowcaster. Or some such. You should make it public, with warnings. Maybe test break it a little to see where it breaks down. Something, is always better than nothing, becuase it gives us something to work from. Yup. Which is precvely why I think BRP needs somebody, to put together a genric SCiFi book. Just so people who want to play SciFi won't go running to Traveller, GURPS, 2300, StarHero or some other system. You loose players that way. And it is a bit much for newbies. Many do like high fantasy. In fact it is the largest RPG segment. For BRP to be successful it has to try to cover the bases. As for mutations, they ARE incomplete. They are pretty much the same as the ones in Hawkmoon, and those weren't much more than a table like the one for Chaotic Features. We could,m but I think we can just restore this threat to it's original purpose. I for one don't see a problem with expanding the riposte rules to handle multiple attacks. Everybody just dies quicker.

No, not at all. As technology improves things are invented that can do things that simply weren't possible before. It is more that just speed and miniaturization. And there are lots of ramifications that go along with all that. A first aid kit from 1000 years ago simple does not do the same things that such a kit does today. Today such kits contain things designed to keep a wound from going septic. Similar ramifications exist in setting where magic or superpowers exist. The ability to raise the dead, halt aging, or cure the plague have major effects upon a setting beyond that of just being a better band-aid. No. That's no more true of SciFi than it is of any other genre. You can't have generic Fantasy or Generic Modern Day either. Any setting needs to be detailed by somebody if it is going to be worth a damn, no matter what genre it covers. But a game system needs the components tools to make it work. If you are going to cover melee combat then you need weapons and weapon stats. if the game is going to cover magic, then it needs some magic rules. A generic RPG system that is supposed to cover SciFi needs to cover those things that go with SciFi. Bull. BRP offers practically nothing for SciFi. Sure any GM can write thier own rules cover thing like stars, planets, spacecraft, aliens and so on. But they can do that for any system or even create their own. BRP, as a toolkit, gives practically no tools or help towards such. As far as Star Frontier goes. It was crap. And it belongs in the trash bin of RPGs. Lousy mechanics, lousy setting. All it was was a way for TSR to try and move into a part of the RPG field where they had no presence. That is silly. Does somebody just define a cliff for the bad guys to fall off?Or do they redefine a bow, the impale rule, weapon ranges, or healing magic whenever they want to? No, you define those elements that are important to the game. You don't just ignore them. Bull. By that reasoning we should all dump BRP and play MUSHES where we don't have any rules to worry about because they might limit our creativity. I don't see you campaigning against having weapon stats or crusading for the removal of the magic rules because they limit and restrict. our options to use and portray magic in our games. Let's not cover something for fear that it might restrict us?What utter crap. First off, no RPG would ever seen print with such thinking, and secondly, any GM can always ignore, alter or replace any rule, system or game mechanic. That is precisely why BRP has so many different options. The original authors at Chaosium were not afraid to define stuff, and to replace stuff when they wanted to. All RPGs restrict out choices to some extent. It is a necessity. We all accept limits to what we can do, and how things work in order to have a shared RP expereince in a given setting and campaign. But an RPG isn't a movie. In a movie you don't need to know what sort of damage a lightsaber or proton torpedo does, since they will always work the way the creative staff wants them to. In an RPG you do, because the GM doesn't have that sort of control over the course of events. A player might be on the giving or receiving end of such a device and you are going to need a way to resolve the effects. Bull. In fantasy setting we have rules to cover things that characters do. BRP has several different magic systems. And people still complain. Even going with your Internet analogy for a moment. To use the Internet somebody has to have some understanding of it, and what it can and can't do. And for somebody to run the Internet as a tool in a game, he has to be aware of what sort of functions it can be used for by a character, and how likely it is to do so, and what pitfalls might exist in doing so. Things like finding completely erroneous information, or having your credit card information stolen, or as BRP Central fans know, having your website hacked. To run the net a GM has to have some understanding of it. Maybe if you are running a bunch of drooling idiots who never do anything. Most players get kinda nosy about the ins and outs of something that just flash fried a PC. At the very least they want to figure out how to do it themselves. Have you read any of these BRP games? If somebody takes 1500 points of damage from a spell I guarantee you every player at the game is going to want a very good explanation as to how that is possible in BRP or any of it's variants. How do you know he won't? That would depend on the character and what skills and abilities he has. And it has nothing to do with SciFi. Of somebody knows how to make a sword, bow, or a pair of shoes, it s because they have some knowledge about such things. They don't just pop up out of thing air. Somebody has to understand how the things work or else they would never exist. Why? It isn't important that you understand how they work in detail. But is is important that some people know how they work in detail. But to use these devices you do need to have some understanding of what the devoices are, what they do, and how to use them. And that is precisely what BRP lacks for SciFi. In light of Nick's response. No, Not this, a million times not this. Why? Because what makes one setting more interesting than another are those details. That's why most DD setting feel the same. What makes RPGs good is a combination of rules and setting. If the GM ignores both and leaves everything up to the players then you can wind up with a bunch of campaigns where everything is the same. Just look at how many D&D campaigns are essentially the same despite being run by different GMs each with their own "world". I don't see anybody jumping up and complaining that BRP spolis the whole combat process for them by having detailed rules for things like attacks, parries, armor, and tracking injuries. You're being rude and condescending. BRP covers things like cars, sailing ship, magic, and armor, yet that's okay. Talk spaceship and suddenly it's not an RPG anymore? That's unfair and uncalled for. SciFi RPGs are just ad valid as FRPGs. A fantasy setting and magic rules do not hold some sort of moral high ground as far as roleplaying goes. I don't make fun of you for playing in setting that have elves, magic and dragons. I don't tell you to go stick you head back into your FRPG sandbox, pull out you magic wand and play with your dice, as a break from RPGing. Take a look at games like D&D 4E and Decipherer's Star Trek RPG and tell me which one is the board game and which is the RPG.

Is Operation; Ulysses a CR adventure? I think BRP needs a genric SCFi sourcebook. MAybe the stuff the O:U or CR could be ported over sans setting. And I do think something is neeeded for starships and that they are more than just plot devices. Plently of SciFDi setting have starship combat, and we need somee sort of rules to allow that in an RPG. The rules could be an entension of the BRP vehicle rules, the old RQ ship ruules, and extension to the BRP Mecha rulees, or something else entirely. But BRP needs something. Over the years Chaosium just didnt cover ScFi as well as they covered Fantasy and modern day and it left a blank spot in the toolkit. A GM wanting to set up a ScFi game is not going to find much help in the BRP Gold Bopk. Unfortunately, like me it is stuck in limbo. Due to ecomonic difficulties I'm in the process of moving and most by notes are packed away. Yes, it would. At ;east as far as vehicles go. And to a certain extent, weapons. But until I can stabilize some things in the real world, I doubt I7ll get much chance to work on the vehicle stuff.

Okay, granted CR did-at least good enough to handle it's setting. . But that doesn't help BRP very much, and my comment was directed against BRP. If somebody took CR, got rid of the Cthulhu Mythos, and printed the tech stuff as generic SciFi add on for BRP we'd all have something to work with. But as it stands, SciFi is poorly supported in BRP.

Yes. You see originally RQ and BRP used separate Attack and Parry skills for each weapon. But in more recent BRP derivatives (i.e. Elric!) a single skill was used. If you use both A&P skills then each is raised seperately during creation (and later, too).

Sure. But I think using two monetary systems (wealth levels and currency) just adds more complexity and trouble. I think it is best to pick one method for a campaign (whatever that may be) and stick with it.

Not enough to really flesh out the setting. I remember having the RPG and wishing that they gave more I felt like I would had to pick up a half dozen Ni ven books to get a good enough grasp of the setting to run a campaign. Ringworld was a sandbox without much sand. Exactly. It wasn't a complete game. The either should have fleshed it out enough so you could run a campaign, or take out what setting there was so it could be more generic. SciFi doesn't have a "default" setting the way FRPGs tend to. So any SciFi RPG setting needs to be explained.

Okay, I can see what you mean. But it is possible to incoprate trade into a wealth level system. For instance, the trade results could give bonus wealth levels that could be spent to raise wealth temporarily. I still think an one or the other method is better than using two different system at the same time.

But why would anybody want to? Wouldn't it be better to use one or the other?

No it didn't. It pretty much bypassed most of the elements of SciFi, and set everything up on the RingWorld which wasn't much more than a blank slate. And it was RingWorld in a vaccuum, since we didn't get enough info to do anything off of the ring,or even give us a way to do so. It is just a wilderness setting with laser guns. Cthulhu Rising does a better job of providing a setting and SciFi trappings, inclduing spacecraft, but it chucks in a bunch of Cthulhu Mythos stuff that most gamers don't want with their SciFi. I don't bllame the peoplebehind CR for doing so. It's a nice extension to CoC, but how many people who want a SciFi game are buying CR and removing the mythos stuff? As has been pointed out many times, BRP is lacking in the SciFi genre. Compare it to any other "generic" RPG system. Yes it is something that can be fixed with a good supplement, but it hasn't happened yet.

Glad you like it. I had decided that if I were to run a CODA Trek campaign, I7d have run a CODA LOTR campaign in the holodeck. a "live" FRPG in the holodeck worked really well in Trek games. In fact, the players seemed to enjoy theholodeck adventures more than the regular ones. Perhaps due to the safety net/do over quality. BRP has a few hurdles as far as adapting it to SciFi. Primaily the fact that being designed for a lower tech setting, it lacks rules to handle the usually ScI Fi trappings. Not that adding such would be all that hard, just that it would be a lot of work. It's not just the laser guns and spaceships, it's all the other fiddly bits of technojunk that are ubiquitous in a SciFi setting. Comm gear, emergency medical packs, handheld scanners, handheld computers. All the piddling stuff that makes the setting feel futuristic (and would probably be left behind or thrown out when people moved). It's tedious to write up, but important in setting the right mood and feel for the campaign. It makes it feel SCiFi ish and not RQ, or COC ish.

Sometimes you can solve the "sandbox" limitations by revealing that it is a sandbox. For instance, back when I was running Star Trek, I would run some adventures i the holodeck. The nature of the holodeck adventure is basically a sandbox adventure. But the players balk less, because they know it is a sandbox and that they can always walk out (well, almost always). In fact, they tended to be less likely to try to go outside the box since they knew their characters were playing a game in the holodeck, and that they should conform to the rules of the particular adventure. It not only allowed me to expand the type of adventures I could run, but it also gave me a way to playtest new rules and ideas without any permanent effects on the campaign or PCs. Stuff that worked well became new rules, and stuff that didn't got dropped. The really embarrassing errors were passed of pas programming bugs.

This isn't relly adding something new to RQ/BRP but more a matter or returing something to it's roots. Personality traits in RQ hark back to the Thieves World boxed set, and were even incorpoated into the alternate RQ3 character sheet printed in an issue of HEROES magazine. If incorpating traits and passions into BRP, I'd suggest incoprating some sort of bonuses like Pendragon has. It would certainly help to include require trait ratings into RQ-ish cult writeups, and add in some minor perk for having all the right traits at a high rating.

One thing that you could try to simplify this would be to use something like what the old Tosp Secret/S.I. system did for Hth combat. In that RPG the tens didgit was the damage result. So a 46 did 4 points of damage (to location 6); a 82 did 8 points od famage (to location 2) and so on. Weapon and/or armor mods could be a flat modifier, usually +1 or -1. Based on the average damage rolls, here is a short breakdown of the modifiers. 1D3+1 = -3 1D4+2 = -1 1D6+1 = -1 1D8= -1 1D8+1= 0 1D8+2= +1 1D10 = +0 1D10+1 = +1 2D6+1= +2 The only tough bit would be the critcs and specials. The easy fix would be to use a fixed value for crits and specials (probably 10 points plus modifiers). This variant would actually reduce the number of rolls. If we change the hit location table to a d10 or used an odd/even split on the tens digit we could use the attack roll to determine hit location too, as in TSSI, and eliminate yet another roll.

What if: 1) A normal character must use the lower of his Bow or Ride skill when shooting from horseback, as normal. 2) A character with Horse Archery can use his Horse Archery skill instead of Bow, and is not limited by his Ride skill. Additionally Horse Archery skill starts off as the average of Bow and Ride, although it can be improved like other skills.

I really liked that adventure. Tell him thanks.

Yeah, me too. With me it was more a case of my being so famialr with what "everybody knows" that I didn't consider that the common beliefs were not part of the legends. Then I started reading books like Dracula, and discovered that the literary vampire was far differernt from the film vampire, and that got me to dig deeper. QUOTE=Heimdallsgothi;41373]Well looking at classic monsters.... vulnerable to silver and magic..... 12 hps.... not so bad...

I think they did. I suspect that Aps o something like them were used in some wargames before they were incorpated into RPGs.

Yuo know the culture, just not it's source. Quite a few of the things that every assumes to o be part of werwolf and vampire legends come from the movies. It is somewhat significant to gamers, since it is mostly the film versions of monsters that the RPG analogs are based upon. Yes, indeed, although you will probably see more variation in vampire legends that werewolf legends. Back when I was running CHILL, it was very important for the PCs to do thier homework and discover just what subtype of monster they had to deal with. Relying on vampies supposed vulnerabilty to sunlight has proven hazardous some some PCs health.

Yup. According to folklore you didn't need anything special to kill a werewolf. Silver, transformation tied to phases of the moon, the bite being contagious, and all that came from The Wolf Man. Traditionally silver weapons were for use against vampires. It is just amazing how much of the modern "werewolf tradition" was invested by Siodmak.

Of coruse, when somebody who has been playing BRP for 20 or 30 years decides to change something, that's differernt. They at least know what they are messing around with. Amen. One of the things that I didn't like about MRQ was that most of the changes to the system created new problems. RQ had a bunch of checks & balances built in, and the new author(s) did not seem to be aware of them. That is why thet had to keep patching the combat rules. Often people familiar with another system just assume that things work the same way in another, and make changes that have effects that they didnot expect. For instance, a +1 sword in D&D does full damage to a werewolf, while a sword with Bladesharp 1 only does 1 point to a wearwolf in RQ. That makes a big difference when you have to fight a werewolf. And those who are unfamiliar with RQ/BRPO will be in for a nasty shock.

Sorry, Rod. I diodn't mean to imply that there is anything worn orbad about Classic Fantasy. I was just emphasising that it can be silly to play a differernt RPG and not expect it to play differerntly. There is a LOTR group in my area where one player kept acting like the game was D&D. He was bothered by differences in the systems (anything that was different that DD was "wrong", something that got funny when it was pointed out that Tolkien was the one who created things like orcs, grey elves, high evles, and half orcs, not TSR). The player was constantly complaining about the game system, and was always upset that his character couldn't do the same sort of things that a wizard could do in D&D. He never even tried to discover all the things that his character could do in LOTR that he couldn't do in D&D. There was really no reason for him to even try LOTR. There really is no point in somebody buying a differernt BRP if they are going to keep playing the same way. And a lot of players don't seem to get that and adapt. There isn't anything wrong with somebody wanting a "Classic Fantasy" experience and playing CF. I just think that new groups should atleast trying to et familar with BRP, before turning it into something else.

Well, the game really hasn't been very active for most of those 30+ years. It stared off well, but RQ3 resulted in them going over a lot of old ground, with lisended settings like Stromberinger and CoC adding some setting specfic nasties. But creatively the system was stuck in limbo for two decades.

There are lots of ways to reduce mortialty, but I think it is better first to understand how the game works as written before aking any changes. For those who want a gaming experience more like D&D, there is Classic Fantasy. But, I think that sort of defeats the purpose of playing BRP. I mean, if somebody wants things to be more like another game, they could just play another game. BRP/RQ is enjoyable in part becuase combat is so leathal and it forces players to trhink.