soltakss

Yes, the new BRP book would be useful to someone who has a lot of older supplements. The rules are consistent and wide-ranging. There are rules for many genres and the BRP rulebook could be used with other systems quite easily.

Mine arrived on Thursday (10th July) but had been sitting at a neighbour's since the previous Friday (4th July) waiting for me to pick it up, but nobody told me. It looks pretty good, very clear, well laid-out and easy to read. The rules themselves seem consistent and simple and there is a lot of GM advice and examples. All in all, it seems to be the real deal. Now, let's hope Chaosium can support it.

Touch Illusions are useful - you walk through a room and something touches your back, an illusionary woman appears and taps you on the shoulder, you feel along a wall that appears to be solid. Illusionary weapons are iffy, but it depends on how you see illusions. In D&D - if you don't Disbelieve an illusion, does it still hurt you? I think it does and am fine with that.

RQ3 also had locational armour with ENC and cost for each type of armour for locations. So it had the best of both worlds - an easy to use/buy set of armour and crunchier location armour rules. It does. It also makes it harder to work out what the AP should be if you are not using hit locations. Should somebody wearing a full suit of armour have the same protection as someone wearing half a suit of armour? Now I actually have the rules I suppose I should start looking things up more often. I suppose that could work. As I use Hit Locations I've never needed to do this. As to weak spots, I wonder how the rules deal with armour that has been damaged, by acid for example. With locations, acid only affected one location, leaving the rest on full APs. Without locations it should affect the whole suit.

A fumble, definitely. Like the old "Hit self, do maximum damage". In this case it's "hit someone else, snap own leg in two". Although it could have been a failure and a critical parry.

What's happenimng with the Shared World idea? It seems to have died a death. I know the Green has been hived off as a Monograph, but is anyone interested in other areas? I don't really want to be the only one contributing (althogh I haven't been, but you know what I mean) as it makes it my world which isn't what I want as my world is Glorantha.

I suppose it would be handy to include whether a solar system has colonies on, what species owns the colony and so on. This is dependent on the setting, though, and might nor suit all settings. Would you only include systems with colonies or all local stars?

I've created a Star Map HTML file at Star Map that contains stars within 70 or so parsecs of the sun. It is best viwed with the smallest Text Size as that makes it one screen-width wide, or it does on my PC. It uses an on-line resource that contains 119,618 stars, but not all of them have made it onto the starmap as they are too far away. The star map is in layers, with each layer representing a 2D slice of the mapped cube of space. Z Co-ord 0 represents the layer containing Sol and the others are roughly 1 parsec apart (I think). There are some hyperlinks at the start of the web page pointing to the different planes. I included stars with names, stars with catalogue numbers and stars without names for completeness. However, it would be a simple matter to take un-named stars out, for instance. As I am not an artist, I haven't a clue how to convert these to images, so they will have to remain as text files. What do you think? Are they: 1. OK 2. Too detailed (too many stars) 3. Too complicated (too many symbols) 4. Too big (too many charts) 5. Difficult to use 6. Not suitable for a SciFi RPG Feedback and comments are welcome.

Most of my games have been with friends. I tried a RPG club once but it was too geeky and they played lots of different games, not my kind of thing at all. I've never played in a RPG shop, again the participants tend to be far too geeky for me. An RPG club would definitely be a good idea as teenagers tend to congregate in clubs of various kinds. Those who would be naturally attracted to Roleplaying Games would be a bit geeky themselves (myself obviously excluded - that's why I am on an RPG Forum on a Saturday night) and would find a home-from-home there. (Us loners need to stick together).

Back to the original question, BRP seems to be closer to RQ3 than RQ2. I don't know about RQ1 as I've never seen it, but I've heard it is close to RQ2. Some optional rules tend to be similar to RQ3, at least those in the playtest did. Magic is completely different, though, and all the non-Fantasy stuff is extra. So, close enough to use RQ2 with BRP but definitely a different game. Not as close to RQ as I would have liked but not too far away.

That's their problem, not mine. To be honest, though, the only contact I have with children is with my nephews and they have never expressed an interest in roleplaying, in fact I doubt if they know that Uncle Simon plays silly games. But, I have seen kids at conventions happily playing RPGs. What do we play? Roleplaying GAMES. Who normally plays games? Kids. I can't see anything wrong with a thread aimed at attracting more children into roleplaying. Could my idea of a tube of Smarties in every box be misconstrued, then? Believe me, if people wanted to find things about roleplaying that scared them off there's a lot scarier than this thread.

I've done some star maps using the 30,000+ stars at various scales. You can find them at www.soltakss.com/bigstarmaps.zip and they are more of the same. Each text file contains multiple planes. I have sorted the stars by name order, if I have the name, or by catalogue, if I have that, otherwise I have named the star according to its Star ID, which is a number in the file I downloaded. As before, I have divided the distances by a factor of between 1 and 10 to see which looks best as a starmap. The best ones shouldn't be too close together or too far apart. Let me know what you think of them.

I've put together some star maps in text format at present. you can find them at www.soltakss.com/starmap.zip. There are 10 Text files - starmap01.txt to starmap10.txt. Each file has a number of grids, each of which is a Z-Co-ordinate Plane. Empty space is marked by a dot (.) to help with navigation and stars are marked as letters. Navigation is by moving along adjacent dots. What I have done is taken some files from Halo Stellar Cartography and converted them into a grid format. I turned each co-ordinate into an Integer then divided them by a factor and saved the stars off in grids. I'm not sure how useful they are because they are either very sparse or very clumped together. Maybe I need more stars to work with. I haven't included the maps between each plane as they are all blank with no stars at all. They are handy for navigation, though. If anyone else has any index of stars then I can do much the same with them to add more stars. All I need is an Excel or CSV file containing the Star Name and Relative X,Y and Z co-ordinates. If anyone has any comments or ideas of how to improve the maps then let me know.

This is still very rough at the moment, but here are some quick thoughts about Space Travel. I like such rules to be quick and dirty rather than particularly scientific. Space Travel in BRP I’ve had a few thoughts about how to generalise and abstract Space Travel in BRP. Of course, these are my own opinions and I don’t claim to be an expert in any way, in fact the opposite is true. That can actually be an advantage as I am not bogged down in hard-line astrophysics so I can safely ignore any attempts at real-space modelling. The trouble with modelling space travel in any role-playing game is that it has to be easy and quick and needs to be at least reasonable, by which I mean that you can look at it and not think it’s a silly idea. You also have to be able to deal with different types of space travel and allow for different technology levels and technologies that use the same general rules-sets. Mapping Space Space, as we know, is multidimensional, which makes mapping it difficult. Some RPGs have used the “Flat Space” model which says that most Galaxies, in particular the Milky Way, are spirals which means that they can be modelled 2-dimensionally. This makes mapping a lot easier as you don’t have to worry about extra dimensions. However, you might want to give the galaxies a thickness which involves a third dimension. For gaming purposes, I am assuming that Space is mapped in 3 Dimensions. How do you map 3 Dimensions easily? By using multiple 2-Dimensional maps. So, you have a number of maps overlaid on top of each other. What scale is best? Whatever scale you think works for your setting. This mapping is extremely relative and abstract and can be used for different types of setting. Mapping is on a stellar scale, so solar systems are lumped together and are only referenced as Stars. Stars are placed on a 2D grid with each star occupying a single square on the grid. How far apart the stars are on the grid depends on how many days you think it should take to travel between stars. If you think that starships should hop from solar system to solar system every day then put them close together. If you think it should be an epic voyage between systems then put them far apart. Personally, I think it should take a couple of days to hop between systems, so I’d have them fairly sparse but not too sparse. You can map them in a paint/drawing package or in a spreadsheet. Excel is ideal for multiple level starcharts. Moving Between Solar Systems Movement between stars is relatively simple. Each Interstellar Drive technology has a Factor that determines the distance that technology can move. Some use a single jump/move, others allow the starship to move that distance in a day. Simply move your starship a number of adjacent cells left/right/up/down on the same plane or to the equivalent cell on an adjacent plane on the star map. You might even be able to move diagonally if your GM wants slightly faster movement. Interstellar Drive Technology There are many types of Interstellar Drive, all with their own difficulties and foibles. I have tried to abstract them and group similar technologies together for convenience. Although SciFi novels/films/series traditionally have a set technology that works in that setting, there is no reason why you can’t have different technologies working at the same time. I would guess that the technology would be species/culturally driven, so that each species/culture would guard its own special technology and leave the rest of the Galaxy to use the standard technology. Jump Drive This allows a starship to jump to another point in space. Such a jump is instantaneous as it opens up a temporary wormhole or join between two points and passes through the hole. Each Jump Drive has a Factor and a Recovery Time. A starship can move up to the Factor in units on the starmap. Each Jump costs the Movement-squared in Energy Points, so a Jump 1 costs 1 EP, a Jump 10 costs 100 EPs. The Recovery Time is the minimum time between jumps. A starship with a small Factor and low recovery Time is sometimes faster and more economical than one with a high Factor but long Recovery Time. HyperDrive A HyperDrive allows the starship to travel through Hyperspace as if it were normal space. This allows Faster Than Light (FTL) travel without breaking Einsteinian laws such as the Velocity of Light in a Vacuum speed limit. Each Hyperdrive has a Factor and a Cost. It costs 1 EP to Jump to Hyperspace and another to Jump to normal space. A starship can move its Factor in units per day, such travel costs a number of EPs equal to the distance moved multiplied by the Cost. So, a starship with a Factor 5 Cost 3 Hyperdrive can move 5 units a day, but this costs 15 EPs. FTL Drive Similar to a Hyperdrive, a FTL Drive allows faster than light travel but in normal space rather than in Hyperspace. This breaks Einsteinian laws by being clever, but that’s fine if allowed in your setting. Each FTL Drive has a Factor and a Cost. A starship can move its Factor in units per day, such travel costs a number of EPs equal to the distance moved multiplied by the Cost. So, a starship with a Factor 6 Cost 2 FTL Drive can move 6 units a day, but this costs 12 EPs. Jump Gates A Jump Gate can open up a Jump Point between itself and another Jump Gate. Each Jump Gate has a Factor and can connect with another Jump Gate as long as the other gate is within its Factor. A starship can move through the Jump Gate, exiting at the other Jump Gate. Such a Jump costs the Movement Squared in EPs but this comes from the EPs of the Jump Gate rather than the starship. There is normally a cost associated with using Jump Gates as they are run as commercial ventures. Starships with a functioning Hyperdrive may use Jump Gates to jump into Hyperspace. This is useful if they are short on EPs or have lost the ability to jump into Hyperspace. Wormholes These are naturally occurring phenomena that link two regions of space. A starship can pass through a wormhole at no cost, emerging at the other end. Stable wormholes are very useful for interstellar navigation and are often guarded by Starbases of some kind. Some advanced technologies can create wormholes. These then become semi-permanent and can be summoned for fast travel. Obstacles to Interstellar Travel There are many obstacles to Interstellar Travel, some are just annoying, others are dangerous and others block travel completely. Hyperspace Scars Sometimes an area of space can be damaged by a natural event such as a Supernova or an artificial event such as a powerful ancient weapon. These areas are called Hyperspace Scars and have an effect on Interstellar Travel. Black Holes No starship may cross a cell containing a Black Hole and any travel through a cell adjacent to a Black Hole costs double Movement. No Jumps can be made to or from a cell adjacent to a Black Hole. Dust Clouds Dust Clouds exert a gravitational pull that affects the local space and hyperspace. Travel through a Dust Cloud costs double Movement.

I'm looking at doing that at the moment. I've downloaded a few co-ordinates of 40 or so stars and will try and put them on a star map. I've also got 30,000 stars, which is probably too many, with a different set of co-ordinates so I have to marry them up first. My first thought are that space is very big and there aren't that many stars, so any starmap will either be full of space and gave hardly any stars or will be so close togather that space travel is just a case of hopping between stars. I've got a provisional set of rules for Space Travel which I'll post. However, I need to decide what scale the starmap is and how fast things can move between stars before I do a real map.

Yes, I bought it at Tentacles last year. It was shrink wrapped so I didn't flick through it. But, once bitten twice shy, I won't be buying any more historical Cthulhu or any other Cthulhu in Sheep's Clothing supplements.

Now, that's the type of thing that puts me off buying any Dark Age Cthulhu material I bought Cthulhu Hungary, expecting a semi-historical setting sort-of compatible with Stupor Mundi/Mythic Russia. What did I get? A couple of pages on medieval Hungary, a lot on Soviet era Hungary and the "fact" than Vlad the Impaler was a disciple of Cthulhu. Disappointed? Extremely.

Stupor Mundi is medieval rather than Dark Age and European in nature. But, you can use it easily enough with BRP and other versions of RQ.

What, like you get on the Wiki Shared World, for instance? When BRP actually comes out and is readily available (very soon) there will be a lot more rules/scenarios/background. You need settings for that and we don't have them as yet. People have preferences. We play RQ3 with some MRQ rules. When I see the BRP rulebook I'll add rules from there as well. I play what works for me. He asked for people's opinions and that's what he got.

It's always OK to suiggest something, make comments or say whatever you want. Possibly, but there are a lot of opinions about what to include, what not to include. It's certainly easier because there is a lot less work to do. That sounds easy, doesn't it? However, you have people who hate SciFantasy and only like hard SciFi, people who don't want aliens, people who want aliens as long as they are completely non-humanoid, people who want faster than light, people who only want current-physics-based science, people who like anything that sounds reasonable and so on. It's very difficult to get people to agree on all of this. SciFantasy, then. So am I, but I also like Asimovish hardish SciFi and think the two could work well together. I'd say Culture rather than just race (I hate using race, species is much better). You could have humans and other kinds of humans such as Asimov's Spacers, Dune's Fremen and Bene Gesserit and Farscape's Peacekeepers for example, all human and all completely different. I like having alien species as well, perhaps with some different cultures. If you have a Space Empire, or numbers of Space Empires, then you get away with having one planet being too important. Set it way into the future and you get other human planets becoming more important than Earth. What was the book where all the physically/mentally superior people went to space colonies, leaving the dregs left on Earth? Power Mongers are never ever a problem, in my opinion. Good powergamers will abuse any setting and any species/culture/tech level so you can't design a setting to stop powergamers. In any case, so what if someone powergames? Let them have their fun. Anywa, look at SciFi films and TV Series. Star Trek has Vulcans and Klingons who are physcially superior but have sever cultural problems that stop them from becoming dominant. Star Wars has humans as the dominant species even though there are many physcially or Psionically superior species. Technology is far more important than species, in my opinion. Give PCs access to alien technology and they will keep the best bits and build up a hodgepodge of technology, becoming superior to all their foes. I don't like the idea of a Galactic Council rukling on whether a species is allowed in. A powerful species will muscle its way in anyway and a weak species will be exploited by the others. Mediocity is good, as long as there's a lot of it.

They were quite good. The Second Age Pavis book was interesting. Of course, people in the "In-Crowd" are saying that they are completely unofficial and inaccurate, however they will be pushing a new HeroQuest line based in Pavis and will try to rubbish any competing works. I think they had their flaws, but came out at a time when RuneQuest wasn't really being pushed and even Hero Wars didn't have much coming out, so Ian Thomson should be applauded for his heroic efforts in detailing Pavis and the surrounding area. Second Age Pavis would be a very good setting where the EWF and Jrusteli can operate side by side.

So, keeping quiet and hoping they don't notice wasn't an option? It would have been my first choice Not yet

Moving this to yet another thread, since it isn't about a starting campaign and isn't about why MRQ is the work of the Devil and all his Minions and why BRP is the work of All the Saints in the Heavens ... I wasn't fishing, honest!

If you want to wait for BRP fantasy supplements then there will be supplements based on Rome and Vikings out soon, or fairly soon. They would make good game settings. But they are not out yet.

There is a lot out there, but that's because the world of Glorantha has been written about for a long time. Other people have summarised the history of RQ and MRQ, so I won't bother. If you want to introduce RQ to a gaming group then I would start with the RQM SRD which is available on-line for free. That would then be your basic Rules Set. You could find RQ2 or RQ3 via eBay or a local games shop and buy those, but then you are tied in to old systems that are out of print and unsupported. As to what setting to run, that's where it gets a bit difficult. I am a huge fan of Glorantha and have played it for 25 years, so I am biased in its favour. Third Age Prax is probably my favourite setting and if you go down that route then there are large numbers of supplements that cover the area. Pavis and the Big Rubble and the Borderlands reprint cover most of Prax. If you can get hold of River of Cradles, Strangers in Prax, Shadows on the Borderlands and Sun County then you have a load of extra scenarios that you could use in a large, and I mean large, campaign arc that will take you years to complete. Second Age Glorantha is what Mongoose are covering at the moment. It is good and the supplements are getting better and better, but it isn't as good a setting as Third Age, in my opinion. No area is covered in depth and it looks as though there will be more supplements about different areas and none covering the same area in more depth. I like depth, so this is a problem for me. If you want a setting that you can play in once or twice then depth isn't a problem and you should look at the Mongoose supplements. Blood of Orlanth is a good scenario arc setting EWF against Jrusteli. Dara Happa Stirs is a good scenario arc setting a Solar Empire against the EWF. Are any of them good as a starting setting? I don't know, perhaps. But, after you have finished the scenario arc, what do you do next? Write your own scenarios? If you don't like Glorantha, or want to get involved in published non-Gloranthan settings then the choices are a lot less limited. Alternate Earth is a setting that has been lauded but never really delivered, RQ-wise. RQ3 had Land of Ninja and Vikings. Land of Ninja was OK, but I don't know of anyone who really used it except as a one-ff gaming resource. Vikings was better and had the advantage that it linked in to different eras of medieval Europe. But, there were no follow-up supplements so you'd have to write your own things to carry on. Recently, Mongoose have brought out Land of the Samurai and Pirates and Paolo has brought out Stupor Mundi. Land of Samurai is good but will there be any follo-up supplements? Pirates is excellent but lacks scenarios. Stupor Mundi is good and has a couple of scenarios but lacks follow-ups. So, I would plump for Third Age Pavis/Prax as a setting for the following reasons: 1. You can use the Mongoose SRD as the basis of your rules for free and can use 90% of the old material without much effort. 2. You can buy 2 supplements that I think are in print or are fairly easily available, and that gives you a massive games resource. 3. Pavis/Prax is fairly easy to understand and gives you a lolt of depth that you can use if you want to. 4. Pavis and the Big Rubble has a lot of introductoty scenarios and Borderlands is one big introductory setting. 5. There is a lot of RQ material on-line supporting Pavis/Prax and it's all free.