Conrad

On 2017-4-24 at 8:08 PM, Joerg said:

I suspect that any of those I mentioned will still incur licensing fees. How high would those be - anyone in the know? My own experiences are limited to Glorantha and Midkemia as settings or products which incur licensing fees.

Why bother with licencing someone else's setting when it is far cheaper to create your own? 

13 hours ago, Joerg said:

 

Niven's Ringworld setting also has the Puppeteer home system - a Klemperer rosetta of five planets around a fast moving primary fleeing the expanding black hole in the center of the galaxy. 

Minor quibble. The centre of the galaxy is exploding in a runaway chain of supernovae in Niven's Known Space setting. It isn't an expanding black hole that they're fleeing from. 

19 hours ago, soltakss said:

So, basically a Worldhouse, a dome that covers the planet. That would work in theory, but is an awful lot of work. The effort to cover a whole planet inside a single dome, or strucutre, is enormous. 

I'd create smaller domes, to provide places for habitation/farming/whatever, then perhaps encase several domes under a larger one and repeat if required. 

Sure it is an awful lot of work, which is why I wrote "maybe of Precursor design" because an earlier higher tech civilization would have made it. But you don't have to engage in such a megaproject all at once. Smaller domes would be an excellent way of slowly making a Worldhouse. Over time, as the colony expands, all the domes eventually cover the surface of the world and are linked together.  

21 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I probably couldn't afford to have one built for me either. It sounds a lot like a Dyson Sphere and Dyson products are pricey.

That's why I wrote "maybe of Precursor design".  Dyson spheres are less likely than Stapledon rings, which is a ring of habitats encircling a star. Dyson got his idea from Olaf Stapledon anyway. 

On 2017-5-10 at 1:13 PM, Atgxtg said:

No, but Class M planets would have to be in a habitable zone. Not necessarily a main sequence star's habitable zone, but some sort of habitable zone. Otherwise they wouldn't be Class M.

Why not have a world that isn't in the habitable zone, but is totally covered by a huge bubble (maybe of Precursor design) that absorbs all kinds of light on the outer surface and uses it to produce a fake sky and sun on the inner surface, regulating temperature to produce a Class M environment?

Maybe the secret is to ask, and if ignored, keep asking till you get what you asked for. I'm looking forward to the RoH Companion too. 

22 hours ago, Joerg said:

I don't expect to find many habitable planets. A majority may be stuck in the Star Trek L-class, resembling our own planet before the cyanobacteria (and other photosynthetic organisms) poisoned it with oxygen.

If we find many marginally M-class planets, that would cry out for a precursor civilisation with roughly our atmospheric chemistry seeding such planets with microbial packages to make them such. They might have used von Neumann probes rather than coming there in person, in which case there would also be a significant depletion of certain elements at least in part of the system.

If sulfur is a problem for the kind of seeds planted by such von Neumann probes, I suggest that the probes themselves might mine it for e.g. ablative shielding or reaction mass. This could be a major export of a hypothetical Venus colony floating in its upper atmosphere, too.

Half of the stories about von Neumann probes have them started by a civilisation like ours. And even if we don't give them the ability to replicate and travel on, serious thought is given to terraforming machines sent before human colonists.

When looking for a "new Earth" to expand to, I fully expect there to be generations of terraforming efforts required to arrive at something moderately analogous to earth. Time which might be spent to adapt the colonists to the conditions expected at their arrival, too.

You can get a lot of mileage out of the huge effort of terraforming as plotlines for scenarios. Terraforming failing may also provide such plotlines too. And planets may have been terraformed (xenoformed?) by precursor races but over vast time periods the terraforming may start to fail, due to evolution of the sun off the main sequence, or terraforming tech needing maintenance, or even terraforming organisms dying out or changing due to genetic drift. 

On 10/05/2017 at 7:16 AM, Pentallion said:

Sulfur is ubiquitous in the universe.  There is a very specific reason why earth can support plant life instead of it all dying off in acid rains from the high sulfur content that exists here.  It's because most of the surface sulfur was blown away in asteroid and comet impacts.  The same is not true, however, of Venus and Mars, where much higher levels of sulfur exist on the surface.  The reason why this is so has profound implications on finding other planets like ours in the universe.

As Jupiter moved further away from the Sun, it pulled the asteroid belt with it.  At a certain point, the gravitational pull of Jupiter equaled that of the Sun upon the asteroid belt.  When that happened, a vibration was created.  Half the asteroid belt continued following Jupiter.  Half fell back into the sun.  During this period, the largest planet between the falling asteroids and the Sun was Earth.  It's greater gravitational field scooped up a large amount of incoming asteroids that would have hit Mars or Venus.  As a result, Earths crust took a pounding and much of the sulfur on its surface was blown into space and carried away on the solar wind.  Mars and Venus maintained there surface sulfur.  As a consequence of this, plant life was able to form on Earth and not Venus nor Mars.

Just because we find planets in the so-called "habitable zone" doesn't mean the planets will actually be habitable.  Sulfur is ubiquitous in the universe.

That's an interesting hypothesis. Do you have any links to scientific papers on it, as I'd love to read them? I have a few doubts about it though.The late heavy bombardment period would have peppered the inner solar system with impactors. Any hitting Mars should have gotten rid of some surface material, including sulphur, due to the low escape velocity that world has. If Earth's surface was scoured of sulphur too, by impacts, then I don't see why Venus  would not suffer a similar process, since it has a slightly lower escape velocity than Earth. But not by that big a difference. Lastly, life adapts, and over time may have learned to live with a high sulphur content. The Star Trek episode involving space hippies relocating to an apparently edenic world, only to find the abundant plants, and fruit, to be deadly would be the kind of scenario that would result from plants incorporating sulphuric acid.  

On 11/05/2017 at 9:29 PM, ORtrail said:

So, the secret to getting things done is to ask Conrad to ask for them? 

Seriously though, thanks for this Newt!  The B&W sheet is clean, clear, and easy on the ink. 

Not really, the secret is to ASK. Nicely, and say "Thank you/arigato gozaimasu/danke schon/merci beaucoup" afterwards. 

Das ist sehr gut! 

Danke!  :D

On 01/05/2017 at 5:46 PM, HorusArisen said:

In my endeavour to be politely helpful I read your post too briefly/quickly, something I'm sure you've never done.

I'll avoid bothering in the future as I'm sure my single sentence was a chore to read.

Looks like you didn't even read my reply at all before you posted "No they've been discontinued." But you don't need my permission to reiterate what I've already written, nor do you need Soltakss's either. As for salty Soltakss saying that I'm not perfect I never said I was, so please stop straw manning Solty. It amounts to telling lies. 

18 hours ago, HorusArisen said:

No they've been discontinued. 

 I wrote "looks like they've been discontinued on other RPG selling websites as well.  Probably to do with the licencing lapsing." So your reply makes no sense. Please read what I have written before you reply to it. 

Does anyone have access to some RoH character sheets that aren't so ink consuming? I just want a plain stat sheet without all that black space as background, atmospheric or not. 

On 29/04/2017 at 5:04 PM, soltakss said:

Ever since Babylon 5, my spacebound Psi Police have to wear black and have a sinister front man.

The Lensman series and The Demolished Man are more my influences, but psychic powers could easily be abused by do gooders, and they could eventually end up being regarded as space fascists. 

"Speaking of which, are the Legend Stormbringer supplements no longer available, or is it just me who can't find them on RPGNow?" It looks like they've been discontinued on other RPG selling websites as well.  Probably to do with the licencing lapsing.

On 26/03/2017 at 4:06 PM, Al. said:

Reducing the Skill List

Elric already doubles up some skills (Scent/Taste in place of Scent and Taste, Devise/Repair in place of Devise and Repair) and the Chaosium-authored but WEG-published Star Wars did too (Climb/Jump and Hide/Sneak)

 

Interesting. Sorry for the thread derailment. I was looking for a reason to get WEG Star Wars for my son. I wonder who at Chaosium wrote the game?

Some kind of spacebound Psi Police would make for a great RPG, especially for OQ, as it is sufficiently different from RoH's territory (I can see it now, OQ Psi Space!). I wonder why the only thing I can think of that sounds anything like that for RPGs is GURPS Lensman? I know that the RPG Space Opera has lenses in it as well, but as far as I can find there was no official Psi Cop Campaign published by any RPG company. Am I correct, or wrong about this?  

Does anyone have Hyperlite: The Sirius Treaty? If you do can you please tell me about the various alien races in that game. The Sirius Treaty

On 16/03/2017 at 7:24 PM, Kesendeja said:

Is there a suplement that deals with cybernetic augmentation? I'd like to add it into a game, but none of my books deal with the subject. Any help would be appreciated, even if its just conversion notes.

There is a set of cyberpunk rules for Call of Cthulhu, which should be useable with the BGB. https://www.rpg.net/realm/cyber/rules.html If you have any of the old Cyberpunk 2020 stuff you can also find rules on converting from that system to Call of Cthulhu here. http://littlezeus.free.fr/jdr/CyberPunk - JdR/CyberPunk [ENG] - JdR/Cyberpunk 2020 - Interface Magazine 2.2.pdf   

2 hours ago, blackyinkin said:

Would people be interested if I uploaded some of the pregens that were written for this setting? I could upload them to this site.

I'd be interested.

I would love to see an old school style space opera setting in the style of Star Frontiers, for OQ. Am I alone in this desire, or would others like to see such a thing? Such a thing would most likely be more popular than RoH as space opera is easier to get your head around than Hard SF. 

3 hours ago, Thot said:

Was any of the stuff in it republished, for example in a Magic World supplement or the BGB?

No, not to my knowledge. I've read the Corum supplement, and the BGB, and there was nothing in there replicated in Magic World, or the BGB. 

26 minutes ago, Chaot said:

Put this man to work!

Dude's a genius.

 

Someone else is too, for appointing him to Chaosium. Mind you, he has done some stuff for 'em before. https://www.amazon.com/Slaves-Fate-Adventure-Melnibone-Stormbringer/dp/1568821549

1 hour ago, Chaot said:

Oops. It looks like I just 'accidentally' bought the book and pdf! (discounted right now at $18)

Guess I'll just have to sit by my front door and wait for the mailman.

Writing as an unpaid shill for Newt Newport and D101 games...hang on..why am I unpaid? LOL Only joking. The setting seems both acessable and long term, if you choose to run a long campaign or series of them, you can't say much better than that.  

Dracas, if you're looking for legally free pdfs may I suggest you go here: http://www.stormbringerrpg.com/?page_id=63 and here: http://www.stormbringerrpg.com/?page_id=86 .