Jason D

If desired, please paste the following over the first two bullets on page 16, column 2:

How bizarre... I did a Google search to see if that name had been used elsewhere, and the first result was a page dated 2005 detailing someone's fantasy campaign... from a GM here in Austin, TX. Small world.

How about something along the lines of Gaea or Pangaea... specifically, Pyraea?

I'm sorry to hear you're disappointed with the core book. However, I should straighten one thing out. At no point was it ever advertised as an evolution of the system. From the product's description on the Chaosium website and on p11 of the core rulebook: An evolution of the system... now that would be a different beast entirely. As for the problems with skills... between you, me, and the Internet, the detailed skill result descriptions are the thing I like least about the book, and were the primary contributions of my now long-absent co-author. I wrestled long and hard about whether to remove them for all but combat skills, but in the end kept them out of respect.

Igneous?

Still working on Interplanetary, and playtesting some of it on these very forums. A bunch of stuff put it on the sideline for a while, but I'm working diligently on it and expect the complete manuscript to be complete within the next 4-6 weeks.

Thanks! Email sent to the participants with the password. Let me know if you don't receive it.

Please ignore the shortened title - it's Interplanetary, not just Planetary.

Hey everyone - I'm in need of a small but dedicated group of playtesters who'll be willing to put a system I've devised for incorporating fencing style maneuvers into BRP combat. It provides a dramatic expansion to player options in fencing-style combat. As anyone familiar with the genre of planetary romance can attest, Earth-born heroes are inevitably skilled fencers, and as such the Interplanetary sourcebook wouldn't be complete without such a rules expansion. I've playtested it locally some, but need to conduct a "blind" test where I hand out the rules, without guidance, to outside players and collect their feedback. I'm looking for basic feedback, sample combats with a variety of characters, and someone to test as many as the maneuvers as they can and see if they work within the confines of the BRP combat system. If interested, drop me an email or a message through these forums and I'll send you the rules expansion. You will, of course, be credited in the book and I'll do what I can to see if we can get a contributor copy (.pdf at the least) sent to you. I can't promise anything, obviously. Thanks! Jason

"The Gothic Touch" first appeared in one of the White Wolf Eternal Champion books - Tales of the White Wolf, If I remember correctly. It was reprinted in Exorcisms and Ecstasies and The Midnight Sun. Of these, the cheapest is likely to be the WW anthology, as the latter two are extremely rare and out of print. I don't know if I'd consider it to be worth spending a lot tracking down... the story is pretty slight.

I'm incredibly eager to get a copy, but don't know anyone who's going to Tentacles from the US other than Charlie, and it didn't look like there were ordering options for outside the EU.

I'll walk you through it using a ridiculous example of a husband who thinks his wife is cheating on him, based on suspicious behavior. The spell has a max range of 100 meters for a familiar area, and the area of effect is a 10 meter area. So that means you can look at any 10-meter area within a range of 100 meters. You cannot modify these ranges, no matter how many power points you spend. For example, the husband might pull up outside his house and use this power to see if his wife is cheating on him by peering into their bedroom. It costs 1 power point, and he can look for up to 10 rounds. He looks... she's not there. The shorter range is for unfamiliar areas. For example, he thinks she's in a motel near their home. This is unfamiliar territory, so he wanders around until he sees her car outside a room. Hiding behind a soda machine within the 10-meter range, he uses the Vision spell to check in the hotel room and sees that she's putting a small parcel into her handbag, but is otherwise fully dressed and alone. He ducks when she leaves the area. By spending 1 power point, you get that effect for 10 rounds (120 seconds). You can choose to continue the spell beyond that, but it'll cost you each round (my apologies that it isn't explicitly clear in the rules). For example, at home her cell-phone rings and she takes the call and leaves the room, stepping outside. He doesn't want to follow her, so he uses the spell to listen to her from afar, hearing 10 rounds of her conversation where she speaks to someone (he can't determine who - the Vision is only focused on her side of the conversation). The conversation goes on for more than 10 rounds, so he spends another power point to continue for another 10 rounds until the conversation ends. He learns that she's making plans for a clandestine meeting at a fancy restaurant the next evening. If you want to look at another place in the past, you need to spend 1 additional power point per use of the spell per day in the past. So, for example, to look at a scene 2 days in the past for 1 combat round would require you to spend 3 power points per round you're using the spell (1 for the spell + 2 per day). It gets really expensive fast. For example, the time comes the next day for her meeting. He waits outside their home, and sees her drive off, looking both ways suspiciously as she leaves the driveway. She's wearing a red wig and has done her makeup differently, so much so that he almost doesn't recognize her. He takes note of the time. He goes in and finds that dinner is in the fridge. There's a note from his wife saying she was called in to work for an evening shift, and will be home late. He uses the Vision power once more to look into the past (just a few minutes based on the time he saw her leave, but it costs an extra power point all the same). This costs the default 1 power point, plus another for the fraction of a day. He sees that she left the house dressed in an elegant and sexy evening gown. He looks in her dresser and finds the mysterious package from the hotel room, but it's empty now. To use the Vision spell on an item, one needs to touch it and spend a desired number of points for the number of mental images one desires. The nature of these images is entirely up to the gamemaster. For example, he grabs the parcel and decides to spend an additional two points on the power to see what can be learned. He gets three flashes of insight: one of a handsome man with an accent handing her the parcel in the hotel room, one of her hiding it in her dresser, and then her opening it and tucking it into her purse. At the third vision, he sees that the parcel's content was, lo and behold, a small pistol. He's convinced she's having an affair and will be out to kill him! He's obsessed with the sight of gun. Finally, he goes to the restaurant and sits at the bar, spying on her. He sees her sitting with a man he doesn't recognize. She's flirting, and is clearly involved with the stranger. Crushed, the husband drives around for a half hour, making plans, and then he goes home. While packing a small bag to take with him while he sorts things out, he turns the television on. The headline story is "Breaking News: Mystery Redhead Shoots Diplomat in Restaurant!" and the scenes are of the restaurant he has just left. It can be a powerful spell, but the lack of ability to control or move the window of view (when you're seeing) makes it somewhat limited. You can specify "look into my boss' office" if you were within range, but if your boss left the room while you were watching, you'd be out of luck. You can specify that you want to see "what happened here at 4:30pm", but if the even happened at 10 minutes before or after, you're out of luck unless you want to keep casting it over and over again or pouring a bunch of points into extending the duration.

My agreement doesn't necessarily make it right... in fact, I'm distressed at how often I end up agreeing with the wrong answer!

This is only armchair quarterbacking, but these are my predictions: Ultimately, it will hurt the rest of the industry. Other .pdf vendors who sold 4E material produced by WotC will lose that income, and other producers of .pdfs will see a dip in their sales when 4E buyers stop frequenting .pdf vendors. Many smaller companies rely on being the .pdf equivalent of the rack of impulse buy items (candy, gum, magazines, etc.) next to the checkout line. WotC will see a small dip in revenue, but they'll eventually come up with an alternate mode of distribution (other than .pdfs) that'll fill the same niche. My suspicion is a subscription-based model of online access to electronic files. I fully expect them to make an unpopular and extremist decision regarding DRM out of their ineffectual zeal to stave off piracy. I don't see it affecting BRP sales much at all. BRP isn't sold through alternate .pdf vendors (so far as I know), and I can't see someone eager to buy a .pdf of 4E going "Hmmm... can't buy 4E as a .pdf... maybe I'll pick up BRP in .pdf instead." Ultimately, though, my suspicion is that this edition of D&D is the poorest-selling and will likely be the last. I'd be happy to be wrong (losing the most visible product in the industry can only hurt it), but I think that eventually Hasbro will decide that D&D isn't profitable enough as an RPG. I'm sure that it'll exist as an IP, but as a pen-and-paper game, it likely has a lower profit margin than anything else Hasbro produces.

That's probably how I'd handle things, if it would be too much work to refactor the two spellcasters.

Correct. P89, 1st column, 3rd paragraph... just above Costs of Magic.

You might look to Cthulhu Dark Ages for more professions. CDA has the following professions: Beggar Cleric Craftsman/Shopkeeper Farmer Guard Healer Hermit/Heretic Household Officer Juggler/Minstrel Mercenary/Brigand Merchant Monk/Nun Pilgrim Priest Sailor Scholar Sergeant/Mayor Small Trader Warrior Woodsman/Fisherman Another source would be Stormbringer/Elric!. The following professions are represented therein: Beggar Craftsperson/Shopkeeper Hunter Lost/Forgotten Mercenary/Bodyguard Merchant Minor Noble Nomad Paid Assassin/Thug Peasant/Farmer Physician/Apothecary Sailor Scribe/Engineer Shaman/Priest/Cultist Slave Small Trader Soldier/Guard/Watchman Tax or Rent Collector Thief Troubadour/Entertainer Between those two sources, you've got most non-setting-specific professions covered.

I don't have any time for playtesting, but I've long wanted to see a BRP treatment of the spy genre, so this is quite cool to read about.

No, you've got it backwards... Age-5 is the maximum EDU can be to start with, not the starting value for EDU. The reason EDU didn't have a starting value suggested was to allow the GM to set it to an appropriate value for the campaign. That way, in a campaign where the GM says "You're all professors at M.I.T.", one of the players doesn't create a character with an EDU 7, or the converse where the PCs are all grade school kids and one of them rolls an 18 for EDU. If you don't have a strong preference, then start it at 10 with the other characteristics. I'd make each EDU point cost 3 points and bump up the starting number of characteristic points by the following amounts: Normal - Increase starting points by 6 (letting players add +2 EDU without affecting the way other points are spent, making a generic person a high school graduate or the equivalent) Heroic - Increase starting points by 12 (letting players add an average of +4 EDU, giving everyone a few years of college or the equivalent) Epic - Increase starting points by 18 (or +6 EDU, a college graduate or thereabouts) Superhuman - Increase starting points by 24 points (around +8 EDU, the equivalent of a M.A. or advanced degree) Why aren't the extra point totals higher? The reason is that these points in EDU will double-dip, so to speak, adding more skill points. They also present the option of unbalancing starting point totals if they're not spent on EDU, so the GM should police how those points are spent.

That reference is in error - it should be Step Three (p20) and Step Seven (p24).

If I had a bounty of spare time, I'd work on quickstart versions of Futureworld, Magic World, and Super-World.

Yeah... I suggested it after turning in the core manuscript and wrote it right afterwards. I'd have liked to do more with it, but the point was to keep it simple and lean, so it could be easily used by players.

It's nice to finally have that out and available.

Good to hear. I was quite impressed with what I saw on the site.

Sure... I can do that.