pulpcitizen

Basically full array of psychic powers from the BGB (plus some others). Mentalist, seer etc are a bit too old fashioned for my needs; need something with a modern sound if that makes sense. Was trying to work with pysch-/psycho- and a long list of suffixes yesterday, but not much luck.

hi guys; I am looking for a term to describe a 'psychic', foir use in a campaign. I don't want psychic (I want to keep clear water with fakers) and I don't want to use psionic. I want something scientific sounding so some (vaguely) plausible prefix + suffix kind of term. Any help or suggestions gratefully received.

Consider Covenant of Justice as dormant and unlikely to advance. Could not quite get things rules-wise to fit the vision I wanted. Things felt too disparate and piece-meal. So background etc remains on my hard-drive and in the play-test docs I sent out. My only solution would have been to write a brand new broad-scope Powers system to emulate everything from Magic to Psionics as well as Supers, but that was not just realistic. I have had some other ideas recently, so some (psionics) rules-based material from CoJ may get get recycled for something else, so who knows what the future may hold.

I suppose I just mean that with its own system, the (non-WOW) full Superworld doesn't require BRP does it? Hence it wouldn't be a BRP Superhero project as such. Semantics maybe, and no slight intended.

And then it isn't anything to do with a BRP monograph or supplement really, is it? And since the OP was asking about BRP Superhero projects after all...

And being fair to Jason Durrall, I think keeping the WoW version of Superworld was a Chaosium decision (or at least I believe that is the case).

This is the crux. I created a lot of extra powers, simply to cover all the evident gaps. Compound that with mis-matching Power systems, and compound further with affixing tweaks upon tweaks and the issue becomes whether or not it is in fact worthwhile basing the system upon the existing Powers options. The narrow focus of the (excellent) Agents of the Crown is workable. The broad spectrum of the gamut of 'typical' supers (from four-colour through to grim and gritty) much less so. But is is not just new Powers; it is also those which evidently don't work well or balance well on a cost-scale. If using point buy, then costings inevitably are important, and a cursory examination of the relative costs of defensive and offensive Superpowers highlights a big problem that is extant across that Powers set. As above, I would argue that to get a satisfactory outcome worthy of someone else's investment requires more than a 'few tweaks'. Thanks for the thought. It was not an easy decision to give up on something I had invested a lot of time and development in. I think there is a role for a BRP-powered supers game, but it needs to be either very narrow scope (like Watchmen sans Dr Manhattan or like Agents of the Crown), or requiring a dramatically revised or replaced Superpowers system. The latter is something that does interest me, maybe when I have recovered the energy.

Having embarked on writing a Supers BRP monograph, and looking at the Big Gold Book as the toolbox, too many of the tools to hand just don't complement each other to make a satisfactory four-colour simulation. While there is room for lethality that may be associated 'grittier' comic books, the systems are still very unwieldy and require a number of individual fixes and tweaks. My preferred solution would be to start again and create a new whole-cloth powers system that is flexible enough to create effects that are reminiscent of the existing systems without slavishly following their internal mechanics. I have the basics of a system in mind, and have done so since I made the personally sad call that my project just wasn't working as-was for me. It is hard to summon the motivation to start from scratch in terms of the work that would require. By the way, thanks to those board members who helped me out while I was pursuing my monograph project. So my thinking is that to work, an effective BRP needs a nice and elegant new powers system rather than combining multiple existing systems inelegantly. Sorry if this post seems a tad personal in my reflections.

Congratulations.

Well not quite x10 cost; either x3.3 for 3 armour (will stop up to 50% of the damage) or x1.67 vs absolute protection. From a Player Character perspective, yes EP attacks can be cheaply nullified (since they will be locked in at character creation by and large), but by extension, Armor is more cheaply cicrumvented in relative terms since the outlay to protect against all types is very expensive when compared to an individual attack; basically to have a comprehensive Armour suite means 8 areas of redundancy. Yes that argument can be reversed, however since the armor can be ignored with a sufficient EP skill roll (Special or Critical success) there remains an imbalance in a number of ways, since a suite of 9 different energy types is less effective than simply putting skill points into the relevent skill alongside 1 flavour of EP.

Why more expensive? Against a single individual attack of course it isn't; against the full array of potential EP's it is more costly. Against any EP, absolute protection costs 54 points against all energy types. As suggested, since defenses will be established before threats are faced, the advantage remains with EP.

Not only is it pretty cheap, but a comprehensive suite of defenses is comparitively very expensive. To take 3 points of defense in all categories (since an energy blast could conceivably be one of any of those) costs what, 27 points (off the top of my head without the BGB to hand)? Therefore the edge goes to attackers in settings where all 9 attack types are roughly equally as common.

Having been working on a supers monograph for a couple of years now, I have to say that the powers systems are the problem in this area; no single one of the powers systems adequately emulates all of the supers milieu, and in combination of three or more, an unweildy and unbalanced beast emerges. I have to agree with Simlasa that suitablity of any system is wholly subjective; so even though I am struggling to make it work, that isn't to say that someone else may not have the same issues. If I ever manage to solve this problem satisfactorily, my monograph will be submitted, but until then not. I think the core game 'engine' is sound, and there is so much that I love about BRP that I wanted to make a supers setting for it, but to make a supers game work using BRP would need a whole-cloth new powers system in my opinion. That system could reflect what has gone before, but would really be best built from the ground up. Just my two-pence worth.

Power level more akin to Spider-man, X-Men, Titans et al.

If by vapourware, you mean 70-80% completed manuscript, some completed art (see my avatar for one of the key NPC's featuring work by one of our board members), then yes it is vaporware... I'll PM the full run-down of wher it is at and why. Leon.

PM sent. Leon.

Lately the rate of publication of BRP monographs seems to have stepped up, and so we have Agents of the Crown (Victorian superheroes in service of the British government) which came out of nowhere for me - I had no knowledge of it before seeing a post on the author's blog (Scott Pyle is the man behind Superfigs and Supersystem). As soon as I saw the note I hopped over to Chaosium's store and picked up the few books I had not yet purchased, and lo and behold AotC arrived earlier this week. My immediate thoughts were that this is one of the most polished of the BRP monograph books in terms of immediate appearance (although more on that later), and in all it is generally nicely done. The choice of watermark/background art on the text pages may not be to everyone's tastes, but I feel it sets the book apart and nicely compensates for a scarcity of art. The text is well written in my mind - economical and clear. It isn't over-wordy and the setting is pretty clearly defined, based on a simple core premise (the existence of superhumans - aether-men - resulting from a confluence of events). This allows the author to define what the setting is about, which is adventures in the mold of graphic novels such as Gotham by Gaslight and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (and as a side note - I actually enjoyed the movie that it spawned!), as well as Victorian prose such as the Invisible Man, Dracula, the War of the Worlds, the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and more besides. Threats come from many quarters - competing nations involved in the Great Race, hostile peoples indigenous to locales laid claim to by the British Empire, home-grown aether-men of a criminal bent, supernatural creatures stalking the night, murderous figures preying through foggy streets, and even foes from another world. In all the book takes a very action-adventure focused approach I feel, offering a few new rules to help simulate this type of gaming, although mysteries would sit just as easily alongside those types of scenarios, so there are lots of campaign opportunites present. The book offers sample characters and an introductory adventure, as well as brief historical overviews and a selcetion of maps, so it is a nicely rounded package in my opinion. There is arguably more depth that could be added to some areas, however that may have potentially detracted from the focus of the book - the thrilling adventures of aether-men in service of Her Majesty, so to my mind Scott has pitched it just right. I do have a few quibbles, however. Firstly is that within the printed text there are numerous dagger text symbols for no apparent reason. In addition there are a number of instances where text is bracketed by 'i' which suggests a problem in translation to pdf or other format, or that proof-reading could have been better. Another quibble is the interchange of use or reference to England when it should be Great Britain or more specifically the United Kingdom (or indeed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, but that came much later than the setting). Also it is unclear where each chapter starts except to peruse the contents page I found, which kind of defeats part of the purpose. My last concern is that I would have liked more art as it is mostly loaded towards the front of the book (maps aside), but given the budgetary contraints of produicng a monograph sparse art is wholly understandable. Those (generally minor) concerns aside, I really enjoyed the book, it seems a fun setting and I look forwrd to running adventures with it one day. I know I discussed a variety of issues of concern, but I felt they were not major so please don't be put off. Therefore I whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone with gaiming interst in this kind of setting. I rate the book as 8 out of 10. The points that brought the score down were the issues that were not (apparently) picked up through proff-reading or were as a consequence of reformatting, and that I would have liked a little more art.

In developing the monograph I am working on we as a group switched over to Strike Ranks, and the view was that for all players and for me as GM we find the system is much more satisfying for simulating the kind of action 'feel' for the game at hand. They take a little getting used to but not too long in our experience thankfully, and allow for some nice flexibility of action also (using smaller amounts of power to trade for speed).

I have just started reading 'Fractured Hopes', Mr. Green, and my initial impressions are very favourable. I'll review it when I have read through it all, but what has stood out to me most of all is how high you have raised the bar in terms of quality of writing. Content aside (not a positive or negative inference, I just want to focus on your writing), your writing style is really nice to read-through, imparting a feel for the world in a very engaging style. Kudos, Mr. Green, kudos.

Thanks. I hope you get to read more about it sooner rather than later. Leon.

Sorry, with a few things going on (I get married next week; I had a close family bereavment in November; and the board changeover has really thrown me), I missed your post. I have been updating Dustin and Charlie every couple of months or so. Writing ground to ahalt around a couple of life events above (and others not mentioned). I had hoped for submission Summer 2009, but that came and went obviously. The remaining chapters to finish off are: - GM's information/adevnture seeds (about half to three quarters written) - characters (about half done) - villainous organisations (outlined, needs a serious attack on the writing) I hope to resume in the next few weeks after my honeymoon. Thanks for checking in. Leon.

Good luck eric71. When do you anticipate submission?

Sorry - I am still coming to terms with the changes the board has undergone. :shocked: 1. The perception that I mention is not in mechanics, but in personal perception (ie my own). Whilst I am comfortable with the low success roll often meaning special or critical success, a high-roll success for opposed rolls creates an illusion (and I know it is an illusion really) for me of reward for the more skilled participant; which is something I agree with. 2. I feel low-roll compounds the benefits of special and criticals to a degree, in that in terms of low rolling you veer towards the range at which they come into effect.

Stepping aside from 'bias' and 'fairness' for a moment, I prefer the high roll for two reasons: 1. the perception it creates. 2. that it doesn't compound (possible) special or critical successes.

Excellent. Thanks for letting me know.