Bygoneyrs

I have not yet purchased Fractured Hopes as of yet. Reading the description of the product, I had to say it sounded kinda of silly. I had visions of Thundar the Barbarian, where in that saturday morning cartoon had one seeing in the nights sky our earths moon "cracked/splintered in half"..LMAO! Sorry or thinking of the Kingdoms of Ming from Flash Gordon<g>! After reading this thread, I might just have to buy it for the heck of it anyway in my next order here shortly<g>! Just have to have it all. Penn

Now players will only have Skills but this is the part that I must decide how I will do this. I tend to like players to have more skills than just a few. I tend to allow players to use a kind of point system for character creation and will let them pick from some standard careers that I will define as I go along. Thus skill sets that they can build from, and choose. BRP will work nicely here for character chreation, I guess I will need to down load that Traveller conversion work that someone else created to aid me in this matter. Penn

Like I have said all along, you the DM/GM should be able to set the mood yourself without using that Sanity check which to me is counter productive to the enjoyment of the players as a whole. Penn

I'd advise to just bag the Sanity Check all together! Use plot and background elements and good story telling to set the mood and character for the campaign. Penn

I should also point out that the Cylons do not use FTL drives either, and it doesn't appear that they have or use Jump Gate tech...but the Colonials don't know for sure about that. As for weapons the Colonials use Pulse Plasma Mini Cannons for anti Fighter defense, Plasma Beam Cannons for small ship to ship assults., and Plasma Burst Cannons for Heavy main ship to ship engagements and planetary assults. The Cylons use much the same systems as well too. They both use heavy Armor, but the Colonials also have Shields as well too. Penn

I should also point out, that I do not use Jump Drives from Traveller nor do I even use FTL drives either. I use Hyper-Space and the Colonials use Space Jump Gates (think of the movie of Lost in Space for their Space Gate ring), or think of B5's gates. They build these huge rings that act as portals into Hyper-space, then once in Hyper-space the crew plots a course to their destination Exit Space Jump Gate. It still takes time (5x faster) to move through Hyper-Space than to make the trip in normal space. Thus the crew needs to go into Cyro-Sleep for the trip in Hyper-Space or long slow trip through normal space. Now "machines" like the Cylons don't need to use Cryo-Sleep, but tend to go into Standby mode for these long trips, awaking on command at the end. Thus a standard one hex trip in Hyper-Space takes like 3 months of Cryo-Sleep time, or will take 15 months in normal space. Now building these huge Jump Gate Rings is extremely exspensive in materials costs and resorces, and takes a lot of time. Once set up there are extremely heavily used by all sorts of traffic. Penn

But but but...that would be ...EVIL<g>!!! Penn

Well that is hard to do if you don't have a Nuke in the first place. Penn

BTW for the record I use the New Look for the Colonial fleet vessels , and collect resin minis as my table top props. I build the mins and then paint them, then uses them just for props. I also use figues for men and etc too...yes we use a battle board on our table top gaming! Penn

Hello everyone, I am a long time RPGer and have doing this hobby now for 34+ years. I started with D&D, then Gamma World, next Traveller, followed by Champions (Hero System) and a vast collection of other stuff over the many many years. My true loves are the above four games, but my stronmgest love is Traveller. I have played that game since it cam out some 30-32+ yrs ago, and have had my own campaign running over the past 25+ yrs. Most reciently I decided I needed to revamp my campaign, and rewite my setting. I have been in the past a member of HIWG and the Verge Sector Analyist. Thus for the past 25 yrs I have based my own campaign within the verge sector in the Traveller universe. Well I have decided to build my own campaign space(star systems) and build a brand new campaign setting as well too. Since my gaming group of (7) guys like me are all fans of BSG Old Show and some elements of the New show, I have decided to build a alternative universe campaign setting based on BSG. Now in my setting, the Colonials are settled within a (15) Star cluster of star systems that are very close to one another. Twelve of the systems each have a single planet within each that is Earth like and on each of these planets one of the (12) Tribes of man settled within the past. Now the history of man, is still that they came from a far distant planet called Cobal and that there were (13) Tribes of man. One left Cobal first and settled on a world they called Earth, but the other (12) tribes of man travelled in a different direction for some forgotten reason and settled the Colonies. Now the race known as Cylon, is a ancient alin race that hase been at war with the humans from the days of when mankind was on Cobal. The whole history or what, why, and where has long been forgotten by the humans. Heck much of the human history about Cobal and where even that was and etc has long since been lost or forgotten. Much of what is still known is remembered in there religious text, and much of that is even written in a kind of symbolic way. So to the humans thus called Colonials, they know the Cylons as machines (think Old show Cylon Centurians) and have never met a living alien Cylon. Now the last prolonged war ended some 40+ yrs ago, when the Cylons stopped attacking the Colonial space cluster for what-ever unknown reason. Then some six months ago they showed up with a huge fleet and attacked everywhere at once. Their Baseships are still the same design (think old show's Base ships), but they seem to have upgraded their fighters using Raiders Mk I (old show fighters), Raiders Mk II(new show fighters but all machine), Interceptors (a Fan fiction design based off of the modified old show Raiders), and Troop Transports(new shows models). The Cylons themselves have seemed to have gone through some upgardes as well too. Firstly we have the standard Centurians(old show Cylons machines), next we have their improved Centurian Mk IIs (think new show machines), and we have other larger more complex and different purpose mecha machines. Plus another new twist, they now have a few models of Cylon machines that the call Terminators. These are a Sudo synthetic looking and feeling flesh job that looks perfectly human from the outside, but covers a metal robotic exoskeleton machine. These new type of Cylons work great as spys or infiltrators, or many other military missions. Well as stated six moths back(before the official game start of the new campaign) the Cylons reappeared again in masive strength and attacked with no regard of their own losses. They launched or engaged every homeworld, every sub colony or instalation in all (15) star systems. They bombed and landed troops on every colony world, and attacked everything that they could. It mattered not weather it was civilian or Colonial Fleet, they attacked everything human. In the end the Colonial Fleet that was devided into 144 BG (Battle Groups) managed to survive and regroup and shatter the Cylon attack. Now this came at great cost to the Colonial fleet and Colonials in general. There was not a single HomeWorld, sub colony, instalation or fleet vessel that didn't take damage or had to fight tin the greatest battle that the humans have ever recorded. The Cylons over all attacking fleet and forces have all been destroyed, and now six months after the first attack the Colonials are hunting down any surviving hidden forces that might be out there still within Colonial space. Meanwhile the Colonial Fleet sustained about 45% losses to the fleet, with many other vessels sustaining great amounts of damage. Now the players within the campaign will all be young Colonial Fleet officers assigned to a small pocket Cruiser, charged to hunt down any Cylon forces, and begin a mission of Recon and Scouting for Cylon staging areas beyond the "Thin Red Line" of Colonial Space. You see the Colonials do not know where the Cylon homeworlds or colonys are and Great Council of Twelve have decided it is time to take the fight to the Cylons and Wipe them out. So I have decided to finally convert my mechanics for the game over to using BRB system, it is something that I have been using as part of my own House Rules for years and it would be easy enough to just convert to using the whole BRP system as it's mechanics. Well I will use this topic as a sounding board for a few ideas and mechanics, and am hoping to hear a few comments back from people on what I have written or plan. Thanks, Penn

Wow a super hero game...hmmm brings back my own groups Good Guy group of Heros..."The Friends of Justice" Now I wish you well and look forward to reading more about this product. Penn

As for the magic system, just use your own system! Like a Mana Point cost system with adding in Components, focus, Mana Pts and other elements. Spell failure is also a good one to include as well too. Penn

Hmmm well my advise is "Wing IT...Dude"<g>! Pick which situation you like the most, it sounded like the Airship one was the coolest . You could just come up with the NPC s names and a blurp on what each person needs to be or does as per a job. Actually just draw up stats as needed and then assign each a few skills that they might need for the game plot. It reall doesn't takle all that long to generate a few NPCs real quick, like a few Key NPCs and general crew NPCs as well. You should be able to stage this situation quite fast. The biggest task will be the floor plan for the AirShip, but you can use a small liners ship's floor plan. Then just Wing the rest of the details from there, the players will never know. Penn

Well "b-dog" all I have to say is ...."Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkkk why would you want to do that"...LOL It appears your wanting to do what I do not, and that is add the Cthulhu Mythos into your D&D. If I understand everyone, by added the Sanity Check system and all that goes along with it your basically adding that element of hopelessness into your game. Eventually the Sanity elements will end up destroying your gamers PCs and causing them to loose their characters. Seems like you could do that just the same with the tone and flavor of your game without using the sanity check stuff. Have you ever DM'd Ravenloft D&D setting, you could add elements of that into your world sighting that a more Ancient Elder Darker force has re-awakened within the world. It seems that from time to time the world seems to be covered in a heavy fog at night where unspeakable horrors come out walk the Earth. Maybe the moon turns Blood Red when that happens too. Also maybe the gods seem to have become harder to hear or help their followers. There are all sorts of things a DM could do to tailor their campaign world to set the mood and present a darker setting. Penn Foot-note: Here is my own topic that might give you some insight on either side of this issue of what direction you might want to move in.. http://basicroleplaying.com/showthread.php/1816-A-question-about-Cthulhu

For me that love for D&D , AD&D, and ver 2.5 D&D will "always" be there. Oh I finally converted my D&D over to ver 3.5 d20 a few years back, BUT when D&D announced ver 4 D&D I said NO MORE. I refuse to revamp my system again. For a while before Pathfinder came out with their ver 3.5.1 d20 revised rules set, I was thinking about using Hero Systems Fantasy Hero v5 Revised rules set, BUT they to decided to upgrade to version 6 HS. I shook my head and said no thank you to that. Then stated looking around at different systems, and returned back to BRP d100. I have for years based many of my own House Rules off of elements taken from BRP. I started to buy everything BRP and reread the system again. I can see now for me, just redoing my game system using BRP with my own magic system would be best. It will help return me back to my roots and feelings of the past where the real goal was actually Roleplaying, not Min-Max rule bashing. Keep it simple and fun, and focus on the roleplaying...that is what I like. There is no greater feeling than to sit at the head of the table durring a game and sit back and watch ones players analize a situation and with such zeal and excitement that you can see that everyone is have a awesome time...including myself. Sitting there with my friends that have played with me for 13-15 yrs now, and watching them all talk at once. Each with their own pile of books, dice bags, figures, toy props, and there all men (5 to 7) my own rough age (late 40s to mid 50s). Now that is what gaming is all about, true table top RPGing at it's best. I look forward to your 2nd book Rod<g>! Penn

Rod it is nice to see folks with simular gaming backgrounds as myself...I salute you sir. So is my above description close to what it is all about? BTW I am still GMing Traveller very much and in the process of redesigning my own Traveller campaign after a 25+ yr run I have decided to write a new campaign. Penn

hello Sarah, so I am guessing then this product setting is a combination of "Gamma World" meets "D&D" in that some great situation or war happened and technology slid backwards and some where in the process we have multiple races living on the Earth and they have discovered and replaced Science with Magic. Also religion has taken a nose dive some how and Demons are released on the world as well too/ Is that kinda of what it is all about? Penn PS: I am a big FAN of Gamma World...I started with D&D then went to Traveller, and then Gamma World some 34+yrs ago.

I have this book myself and it does do a pretty good job making me think of using BRP to revamp my D&D ver 3.5 d20 campaign but use BRP Fantasy instead. Penn

For me I build the sceens my player encounter and play through and it is my goal to keep them coming back for more...I am not looking to eventually cause their characters to need to be replaced by another character because of a game rule and the player's PC has gone insane. It is one thing if the players PC dies, but quite another issue to go insane just becaus ethe game system wants to use an extra rule to terminate a PC. I am quite capable of designing a situation and planning and playing it through myself, and if I am doing my job correctly the risk to my players will be sufficiantly hard enough that if they for what-ever reason don't do the right set of things or etc...death can happen without needing this added Sanity Check ploy to also sideline a character. For me this is just like the "Paranoia" game. I never could see the point of playing a game when the seemingly game goal was to get rid of ones character in time. To me both Cthulhu and Paranoia were set up to do that with ones PCs. For me if a player is playing their PC and manages to survive my plots, then they desirve to right to keep playing their PC and play on with them since they have put so much time into them. Oh yes from time to time, PCs die but it atleast they did so by their own actions/in-actions and not because of a game System Rule. Penn

LMAO...actually my players call me a "Dick"...and will sometimes complain that there are to "Many" different directions to go in. Actually I plan always that each major "event" leads to something else and if missed or not pursued, make it grow in strength. I just love to see their faces when they figured if they had done this or that way back when alot of some issue might have been stopped. The end result my players "ALWAYS" look everything over and hardly miss a detail. They know better after all this time, BUT I still manage to "get them"...LMAO<bg>!!! Penn

Actually I like Fosters in a bottle cold<g>! Penn

Also you could have installed TV like screans everywhere, and take the 1984 approach and have constant "Big Brother" brain washing videos playing non-stop. Think up some catchy sayings that will rub your players the wrong way giving them a real reason why to take out the new government<VBG>! Remember the key in any really good campaign is to always have plots within plots within plots to keep your players always on edge and guessing what they should do next. It has worked for me for 25+ yrs doing just that. Penn

In my campaigning as a GM running a existing 25+ yr long Traveller based camapign, which in my case most of my gaming group having played in my current game now from 13-15 yrs...we have used many different elements from lots of different movies and books. For a while I had a rather nasty Bio-Hazard Plague that was a Zombie style plague that spread across space in a region about the size of a SubSector. Now in my game I have changed the tech used and do not use standard FTL drives, instead Cyro-Sleep tubes are a must for travel. The drive system uses Hyper-Space travel, but ith eithers uses a Space Jump Gate (like defined in the remake of Lost In Space movie) which can take months to travel between Jump Gates, Or one travels slower and can take 5x longer to go between systems all in Cyro-Sleep in normal space travel. Now the "Gesturbini Plague" had a long activation period and seemed to start out as a flue like symptonm, but the infected developes a raging fever plus other symptoms that turn a person into a enraged flesh eating Zombie that has a increased body metabolism that if they don't eat they will eventually dry-up and burn out and will truely die. The infected have a true hunger that only seems to be satisfied by eating warm living "flesh"...fresh off the bone<VBG>!!! That plague caused all sorts loads of issues for years, with outbreaks from time to time. Now these same players PCs dealt with this horror for years as a Trouble-Shooter team. I didn't use any insanity check, because for me I am looking to play Fantasy SciFi not Realism SciFi. Penn

Actually I guess first we should define exactly what each "term" for the type of SciFi Space game really means to make sure that when folks vote they really truely understand what they really do enjoy best. For me I like Traveller game system style...what one calls that...I think it is HARD science Space gaming! Penn

You might also have the Military take control of some "key" businessses and Power Plants... Penn