Lloyd Dupont

Well.. but practically I was thinking to use 2D HexMap (suddenly much less stars already), with each hex being 4 light years and the space empire of interest being like 100x60 light years (it's like 1 year by 6 month travel, good enough for an empire and the game setting) or 25x15 hex.

Suddenly I have much less place to "hide" stuff...

Although... mmm.... just like I simplify the galaxy for practical purpose... I could decide that it is a game artefact that only benefit the players. i.e. NPCs "see the galaxy in 3D" (allegedly) and it justify them not going everywhere.. But it's simpler for the PC....
I guess that could do....

Although I still need to dampen player space exploration ambition a bit... Maybe some space pirate, and the risk of being stranded in the middle of absolutely fucking nowhere could dampen that... mmm...

Well it's Master of Orion, star hoping is a must! 
The story is one with spaceship crossing the universe on a regulars basis... But far from instant like Star Wars though...

I was thinking spaceship to have a base FTL speed 100 times the speed of light time 2~6... Which make the average time between neighbouring star on a slow and steady ship to be one week...

Why would I want to slow down space exploration? First why not? And if not, then I can hardly justify "mystery system".

I can feel you suggesting next that mystery star be a little more isolated, which would be easily 1 month travel.. But that would make them a little too obvious.. beside some of them are not. 

I am angling toward space exploration being much more costly that space trading. But space travel between star having both well developed terran system (i.e no obvious food or advanced industrial product trade being mandatory) still being somewhat viable, so it has to be that a lack of maintenance space station being somewhat costly in someways... But it can't be just a refuelling issue since it is easily worked around with some determination...

mmm.. I kept thinking about it and there is no real solution.. a determined trillionaire could always send prospector ship all around to find some prefect free real estate for their new industrial project. What I need is some alleged space monsters... Which I have some.... Master of Orion has space dragon (ludicrous) and space amoeba and crystal, more "reasonable" considering other thing in that setting...

I found it too.....
Using tidbit of it for inspiration!

Initially I thought it was just a scifi thing.. and then one day I realise there are sorcery, demonology, chthulhu mythos section at the end of the book! 😮

I am working a scifi settings inspired by Master of Orion.
Player will have a galaxy map. Many star will be uncolonised because Terraformation will be harder than in the (original video) game I decided.

In the galaxy map it will be more or less obvious with some stars having generic name like "NGC164" and other will have proper names. Now this is also both a little bit of mystery building exercise, some of those planet are in fact populated and hidden planet by the "local galactic" government.

However these whole 2 concepts: hidden planets, uncolonised system, only make sense in this interstellar travelling era, if star hoping is somehow quite a drag without some helpful infrastructure. So now I wonder... what could this drag be?

I already thought of a mild one, perhaps each light years of travel consume a large volume of fuel, hence the further the trip, the less cargo can be carried... I am also pondering about making fuel expensive, but edging towards cheap fuel, expensive repairs at the moment...
Any other ideas?

On 6/21/2020 at 3:25 AM, Charaina said:

I was reading a Mythos-ish story by Fritz Leiber called "The Dreams of Albert Moreland" and wanted to model monsters off of the bizarre chess pieces in that story, which have various anatomies and carry stylized weapons. Could the monster creation rules in MM7th ed. model something like that?

Long time ago, when I was still a teenager  Fritz Leiber was my favorite author!  

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

2) The same is even more true in a XP award system. Basically if a player isn't going to be using a skill why would he waste points to improve it, when he know that he will be using another skill?

This is really the best objective argument, as far as I am concerned... In fact I thought it too before and I looked (and still looking) at the skill list and wonder whether they are all that needed or how I could find new way to put them more into play....

The rest.. well, we have different experience..

6 hours ago, Kloster said:

No, it is very difficult, because you have to use successfuly the skills, and then success the check roll. It is in fact easier when the player spent points where he wants

Well.. I guess it depends on the GM then...
In one session you can easily fight with spell and weapons, sneak around, climb something, break some traps, lie and hindsight, analyse something and influence someone one.. yet typically I only give 3~4xp per session... a much lower number that the many skill mark one would get otherwise...

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I think that has something to do with how skills work in BRP games as much as how improvement is handled. Generally speaking, players don't want to fail, and so avoid making skill rolls for skills below 10 (50% in BRP). In other games, difficulties are often scaled. So someone who has Boating +5 in a D20 game can row across a pond with an easy (TN 10) roll most of the time. With BRP games, such situations sometimes have a skills modifier or even a difficulty multiplier but more likely do not, or the modifier isn't as significant a factor. For instance a character with Boating 25% in BRP who doubles it for a easy roll is still failing half the time. This tends to make low rated skills practically useless, and something only used as a matter of last resort. For example,  a character trapped on the third floor of a burning building might use Jump 20% to reduce the falling damage, as it a better than nothing, but the same character probably isn't going around jumping over hedges.

Initially I was using multiple or +/-20%.. but I am getting to appreciate x2 /2 modifiers instead!  
For that very reason!

In fact.. the more I think about it, the more this discussion can be framed as a matter of taste.. or athmosphere.. so perhaps some idea on when to change one's mind on what system to use might come out ouf it..

3 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Quote

- 3. I find it a bit too easy to make a warrior-mage-thief-alchemist with skillmark. Whereas with XP, one can do it too, but it takes a bit more effort

Your the first I've ever heard claim so. Not only that, but this statement seems to contradict  you previous 2 points. If only combat skills are going up and the other skills are lagging behind, then then how did their mage, their and alchemist skills go up?

it doesn't contradict my statement, it just highlight that there are skills that are used less often in adventure, maybe once in a while... and probably not in "stressful" or "critical" situation.. so they never or seldom get checkmark...and then one need them they are low....
Thing like languages, sciences, engineerings, crafts, arts, teach, technical skills, ....
Although it might be argued... if they are seldom used.. maybe they are really irrelevant... or my GM is not creative enough... 
But anyway I am frustrated they don't increase as fast as sword skill....

On the other hand.. in an adventure.. everybody is going  to put stealth, combat magic, weapon skill, potion and medicine to good relevant use, or could easily do so...The warrior-mage-thief-alchemist is my favorite class in Oblivion, Skyrim, etc... and I do it in BRP too.. But it's so easy with skill check mark... I want to slow it down...

4 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Quote

It has been a while I haven't used check mark and I couldn't remember why I disliked them.

I thought about it some more. And then I remembered Oblivion, Skyrim.. and how one spend the whole game jumping just in the hope of augmenting Athlectics and how some skill are hard to increase and that create contrived behavior.
And that is my main reason to use XP. I let the player augment whatever they want to augment for the same effort: 1xp. 

Ah, basically the old "skill check hunting" argument.Interesting, except that RQ and BRP games always noted that skills had to be used in stress situations and that the GM was the abriter of what merited a skill check or not. So someone going around making a bunch of frivolous jumps wouldn't work, so no check.

Since we are debating it.. Another 3 problems I fear from skill check marks, and I am curious to read your repartee:

- 1. Most players will increase all their combat skills... And almost no player will increase any other skills... and most player will end up looking the same
- 2. most of the other skill will rarely if ever increase
- 3. I find it a bit too easy to make a warrior-mage-thief-alchemist with skillmark. Whereas with XP, one can do it too, but it takes a bit more effort

8 hours ago, Al. said:

I think (and all obviously IMMOO) the hybrid halfway house model allows for MGF.

This doesn't seem to add much to the conversation but, just out of curiosity, I wouldn't mind a plain English version!

Question for Atgxtg or like minded people.

Would make an exception on the 20% flat skill value start for Influence. And make it 2xAPP% instead be a... more satisfactory change?

Nevermind, not going to do it...

Well... Mugen, while I don't disagree with you, in fact I even prefer XP too!
I think you might have missed one of the core message of Atgxtg: is that XP vs in game skill check mark is ultimately a matter if taste!
Stress on GM's taste here....

Other than that I am not all disagreement, thanks for illustrating how the 2 system differs
I do believe the XP system is not as bad as Atgxtg make is sound!  
In fact I think it's quite good.. pacing progress and letting player increase what they want, and also "as realistic" as progress system goes...

For example: a sport student and a science student both attend a LARP tournament and do their study. One month later: even though both have increased their wooden sword fighting skills, I am pretty sure the sport student would have increased sword skill and physical skill more, while the science student will have continue to increase science topic as well!

3 minutes ago, Vile Traveller said:

Sorry, it probably wasn't clear that that's what my last point was aiming at - characteristics do a great job of building an image of a character, and APP is probably the most important one of the lot in that respect.

mm.... I see.... well it does say whether or not the character looks good!

38 minutes ago, Vile Traveller said:

13 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

So the benefit of high Characteristics is solely in terms of improvement.

Well, characteristics do do a lot of things in BRP apart from (slightly) influencing skills, and have done so in other games long before skills were a thing. Damage bonus, ability to wield heavy or tricky weapons, strike rank, hit points, resisting poison, etc., etc. That's one of the reasons I've moved away from skill category bonuses or characteristic-derived base chances for skills.

In some ways, their most important feature IMO is simply helping players visualise characters (PCs and NPCs alike).

Nobody missed out the little overlooked fact that STR and SIZ influence damage bonus, SIZ and CON influence HP and poison resistance, INT and DEX influence initiative and spell known. For example.

But you seem to have overlooked that APP does..... little! 😮 

All I settled for was a big impact on improving social skills. Much bigger than default BRP. That is what Atgxt was pointing out reproachedly....
But you know what? I think it's probably enough...

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

That's your choice as the Gm/Designer. I prefer the other direction as I think the XP method leads to what is essentially character classes, with any imporment in a side skill coming at the expense of the main skills. But again, your game, your choice.

I do prefer XP.
However you made me pause and unravel the evolution of my preferences. It has been a while I haven't used check mark and I couldn't remember why I disliked them.

I thought about it some more. And then I remembered Oblivion, Skyrim.. and how one spend the whole game jumping just in the hope of augmenting Athlectics and how some skill are hard to increase and that create contrived behavior.
And that is my main reason to use XP. I let the player augment whatever they want to augment for the same effort: 1xp. 

I personally believe the opposite of you, that it is much less class like that the generic adventurer everyone becomes using skill check mark...

Anyway, I could accept it being a short coming of my GMing style (that it is hard to get some check mark on some skill), but hey, Xp compensate my shortcoming well enough for me!  

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

So the benefit of high Characteristics is solely in terms of improvement. 

mmm, yes... I hope it's good enough..
though it could be argued 90% in influence is good enough, no need to go over 100% and one could get that at character creation by passing the APP help.. 
Anyhow I am rolling characteristic in order without tweak, not using point buy or swapping dice, so it's not too bad whether APP is more or less important. (I do give player a final bonus though to add anywhere, just for feel good)

so, to circle back, yea APP might be the least usefull characteristic.. and I would ditch it if I were using point buy.... (but point buy don't work for aliens! )
but it does have an (significant but indirect) impact on social skill that way!
 

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Quote

BTW I don't have pick lock or make trap intentionally, this is all electronic these days....

You might want to keep the door open for the low tech approach. You never know when someone might have something done the old way. In a recent game I ran, the PC were going to check out a warehouse. One of the characters is a IT specilaist, and managed to dig up all sorts of information on the warehouse online, including building plans, and access to the warehouse's inventory program via WIFI.  Then, their "intrusion specialist" got past the door,...and nearly stepped into the dog's water dish. I was a great moment to play out. THey group were all confident in thier high tech, but overlooked the idea of a guard dog.

Turned out the dog was just a pet and went home with it's owner after hours, but that water dish completely altered how the players handled the warehouse.

I mean I am not against low tech, but for pick lock, they just don't produce picklock repair and electronic skill will be used

As for trap.... mmm.... I think it's because I prefer to use crafting or survival roll...

Brilliant!  

You got the job for teaching at the school for evil geniuses!

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

 

 

I was working on a BRP variant awhile ago that did something along these lines. THe relevant points are:

• I eliminated base skill percentages, and instead each skill started at the base category percentage. This was something like two or three Characteristics added together. For example the Knowledge Category started at INTx2%. or INTx3% Melee was something like DEXx2+STR.
• The skill categories covered every skill. For instance, if a character picked up a sword for the first time, he would default to whatever his melee base percentage was. 
• Hard Skills used half the base, and Easy skills twice the base. Stuff that cannot be done untrained, such as speaking a language that a character was never exposed to before or performing neurosurgery, would just ber at 0% as with the current rules.
• Skill checks and training improved individual skills (like driving, sword, read Latin, or first aid).
• Characters could add 1/10% the base skill category to improvement rolls. So Someone with a base of 30% with knowledge rolls and add 3%.

The idea was that we only had to track a half dozen skill categories, rather than dozens of indivual skills, most of which aren't going to be improved much anyway. Not every character becomes a gem-smith or a pilot,. Also, no one is going to be rolling a skill at 10-20% unless they have to, so all we really need for those skills is a default score. Once a character puts work into a skill, then we bothered to track it. 

Well I finished my skill revamp. It's all in my draft document text file, yet to go my word document / rule booklet!
just sharing here for feedback since we are talking about it 😛 
(and you shall soon see how it helps APP to somewhat shine in some case, at the very least be critical in maxing out skills)

- 1st I am using XP (1XP = 1 improvement skill check) and to avoid spending XP on skill not in character I went the Mythras way, standard skill that everybody knows and professional skill that one must learn (moderate effort, at creation or 5XP + 1month part time learning) before being able to spend XP on them.
- 2nd, all skill start at a flat 20%. Unknown professional skill 5% and jump to 20% once learnt.
- 3rd every skill has a leading characteristic which is use for improvement roll. Giving (Characteristic-10%) bonus to the roll, somewhat like RQ3. 11 or more in the leading characteristic is needed to unlock skill percentage over 100%, otherwise skill limited to 90+characteristic (this will help high APP shine a bit.. amongst top performers at least)

- 4th in Character creation
------ chose a race, roll characteristic, get skill bonus (including possible bonus professional skill)
------ chose a profession (10 skill), pick optional professional skill, and add 1skill+50%, 2skill +40%, 3skill+30%, 4skill+20%
------ chose 1 hobby professional skill
------ hobbies: add +20% to 8 standard and known professional skill once and +30% once
------ also (scifi) chose 4 common transhumanist augments

At any rate, I hope this creation procedure is simple enough to not confuse anyone!

To go into more details... since I like POW vs POW more than power skill vs willpower kind of resistance test, but I like to have a little bit of skill based improvement, I do have Willpower and Endurance. But one doesn't roll them. Instead Willpower/10% is added to POW for POW save. Same with endurance and CON. Conversely the power skill% / 10% is added to the attacker's power.

And here is my (semi-final) skill list (might have to tweak a few)

Standard Skills
        DEX Evade         
        CON Endurance    skill/10% added to CON save roll
        POW Willpower    skill/10% added to POW save roll
        STR Unharmed    
        STR Wrestle        

        STR Melee Weapon
            Exotic (all the others..)
            Axe (scythe), Club, Dagger, Flail, Hammer, Polearm, Spear, Sword, Unharmed (blackjack)
            Shield
        DEX Range Weapon
            Axe, Blowgun, Bola, Boomerang, Bow, Crossbow, Throw, Dart, Javelin/Spear, Throw Knife, Sling
            Pistol (&Revolver), Rifle, Shotgun, Other (flamethrow, taser), 
            Energy Pistol, Energy Rifle
        
        INT Appraise    (&customs)
        APP Bargain        
        STR Climb        
        DEX Dance        
        INT First Aid    
        DEX Hide        
        APP Influence    (deception, persuasion, command)
        POW Insight        
        STR Jump        
        CON Listen        
        INT Research    (use with another skill for diagnostic, or alone for fact and data)
        DEX Repair         (used in conjunction with other skill)
        CON Spot        
        APP Sing        
        DEX Stealth        
        STR Swim        

Professional Skills
        INT Cooking
        DEX Craft
            Painting, Stonecraft, Woodcraft, Metalwork, 
        APP Disguise
        DEX Drive / Pilot
            type 1, type 2, type 3... TODO
        INT Electronic
        INT Engineering
            Appliance, Chemistry, Construction, Forcefields, Programming, Vehicle, 
        DEX Gaming
        INT Hacking
        DEX Juggle        
        INT Language\Culture (Bulrathi, Elerian, etc......)    
        INT Medicine    
        INT Media Production
        APP Oratory        
        APP Play [Instrument]
        APP Ride Mount
        APP Teach
        INT Track
        APP Seduction    
        DEX Sleightof Hand    
        POW Meditation (only native psioinic)
        INT Science
            Biology, Economy, History, Law, Mathematic, Planetology, Physics
        POW Psionic Power (each)

BTW I don't have pick lock or make trap intentionally, this is all electronic these days....

You are absolutely right Seneshal.

What I was thinking as well though, there might be way to validate that someone is not a Darlok. Like blood test or psionic probe. But now that I think of it, there are valid in character reason for an oligarch to refuse a psionic probe or avoid or cheat a blood test.

Beside it's far fetched to suspect that, the Darlok are all dead, as everybody knows!

Working on my Master of Orion settings
In master of Orion there is a race that can polymorph as anything and make redoutable spies. 
I made one galaxy background plot based on that and I got second thoughts.

That Darlok plot is as follow:
Long ago the Bulrathi almost made a xenocide of the Darlok. Very few survived hidden.
Much later, i.e. during player's campaign, the Bulrathi empire will fall to civil war. It will start with a coup, followed by 2 noble houses staking a claim to the power of the defunct emperor. So far so good. Unbeknown to all though, one of the house leader has been, in fact, replaced by a Darlok that will do its best to make the civil war as long and bloody as possible, as a sort of posthumous revenge of the Darlok race.

Now I wonder how powerful and convincing the Darlok power of metamorphosis should be. To pull this stunt off... one could argue either that:
- it doesn't need to be much, few could submit an absolute dictatorial elite to some background / personality check.
- it's madness.That will never go undetected, unless the Darlok are absolute perfect undetectable by any mean OP mimicry.
- also, they can't be too good.. otherwise, they will never have been obliterated in the first place

As a side note the players know about the Darlok. The Darlok are described in my settings booklet as an extinct non playable race. With a short history of its demise.

As a side and tangential note (I am not even trying to disprove infinitely powerful and miniaturised laser gun here) perfectly straight laser ray do not exist. And by the time the ray has travelled barely 1 second (i.e. 300,000km) it is much larger (and weaker) (like some kilometres wide) hence these are safer to use in space. I.e. they weakened to nothing in barely a million kilometres! Handy! 😮   
Whereas your average slugger in space can leave dangerous shrapnels all over a system so as to make further space travel if not impractical, at least hasardous.. 😮 

Fascinating thread!  

There is a design flaw in this discussion, which is... "this thing has limitless power", anything has limitless power if you the GM decide so. there is no reason that laser are more limitless that sluggers. To make unlimitedly dangerous hand portable laser you need incredibly energy dense batteries, in which case you could just as well make incredibly hand railgun...

At any rate I am not interest in this path (and I doubt it).. will go with the damage as they are in BRP. Where handlaser guns do D8 damage and hand rifle laser do 2D8 (except I will switch damage type from empaling to light, which effeclively reduce their lethality further, light damage being like fire but with forceshield bypass)

Basically I don't like 1 shotting weapons... Explosives and Fireballs give me endless grief there... one one hand I want them, on the other hand.. I dont like them...

I admit to overthink it...

It started with "Fireball", whichever way I approached it (trying to give Fireball to my Dark Elves) I was always unhappy with the game mechanic one way and another (it was not BRP though, I think I can make it work in BRP now). And then 8D6 of instant pure elemental Fire started to also hurt my physics training and memories on heat diffusion equation....

Anyway, written on my draft now: Modern Weapon with Advanced Bullet (additional Fire, Cold, Shock, Acid damage, like Borderland, just increase dice 2 step for an average +2 damage and more special damage option), Laser (bypass forcefield), Plasma (space only), Disintegrator (Antarian only), Stun weapon (bypass armor, stop by shield, non lethal damage, i.e.using CoC Critical Wound mechanic, they never cause one).

Anyway you make me think about Blaster again... They do set a nice scifi tone.. and your sounds almost convincing.. plus I got idea for propulsion! How about a gas gun? The magazine contains many sliver which have 2 part, the phosphorous head and a tail of an unstable chemical substance. Which got vaporised by the propulsion mechanic (need an internal battery too), and push the head. It would have shorter range, but still good enough... And it wouldn't be 100 ammo per magazine either (more like 20?).

I am reading Magic World diagonally, not sure my understanding is correct... But once again Magic World will inspire me!

I like their simplified skill category modifier, and plan to also use it as the bonus to experience roll. Instead of INT/2 for all skill as in the BRP.
APP/2 is the communication skill modifier and will be the experience roll bonus. Hence APP will have an impact. Even though, arguably, between 18 and 10 that is +5 to +9 modifier, not that big a deal.. although.. twice as much chance to succeed over 100%.....

Also, I am using XP instead of skill mark. And I was wondering if you always gain +1 when you spend a XP.. but this diminish the impact of skill bonus for skill over 100%, if I don't allow that, high APP become all the more critical! 😮 

I am thinking about it become some transhumanist augmentation (doing my setting) do not much more than boosting APP (and vaguely helping for disguise) so I try to make sure they are good value for money!

And also trying to come up with a simplified skill list and character creation procedure (BRP, noob friendly edition!)

I mean.. 23!

With humans maxing out at 18....

It's  way past talking ability, actually the mule should work in a research facility!

INT 23? Are we talking about an animal here?! 😮 

APP 16? Are the women swooning at his glorious presence?! 😮 
Mmm... that last one might be true, women do love furries!