g33k

I think anything "storm" (the phenomenon) probably needs SOME sort of affiliation with Air or Storm (the rune). Ygg, Valind...I don't recall, what Runes does the White Princess have in Prax? She's the most explicitly-snowy deity I recall.

+1 for Loz' excellent line of Mythras supplements! You may also want to look in on a recent thread I started regarding "Expanse or Expanse-alike" BRP; lots of folks chimed in there with good suggestions! I'm likely to be hacking-together my own crunchy bits from multiple sources (both official publications and fannish ones), but such FrankenBRP's are a long tradition in the tribe!

They may not be "default," but they are a pretty well-known alternative setting, and known to work well.

It's one of the pretty well-known and well-explored options of BRP. It works well.

Thing is... I don't actually know how widely that got heard. I know it was "everywhere" at one time... for values of "everywhere" that at that time, for me, were contained in maybe a 30x100 mile stretch of northern California. I'm pretty sure I should NOT regard NorCal as a reliable indicator of the larger world... not at any point in time.

This is probably where someone gotta ask if everyone knows the King Missile song (spoken song) "detachable penis" ? Seemslike I was hearing it a lot for a while, but it's been quite a while now...

I wasn't happy to see it, but that is the way Yinkin & Odayla Rune Magic seems to do it in RQG...

Random idea that just occured to me: might a Horse Hsunchen have some form (presumably via Rune magic, if it follows the cues in the RQG core book) that's essentially indistinguishable from a centaur? And Bull Hsunchen thus to a Minotaur?

C'mon, man... we ALL know you do it old-school! ... You spread it all over your bedroom, and SLEEP stop the pile, gloating. ... The rest of your abode is just a massive set of traps for those foolish enough to attempt a raid...

Obviously, someone DID list that among your assets!

Have you looked at Eclipse Phase? It's... damned good work, frankly. It doesn't lean-in on the hardness of the sci-fi, but the handwavium isn't (IMHO) too egregious. Mechanics and char-gen are (way) too complex for what I want... but... now that I think about it, their 2e is just coming out, and I hear it's supposed to be simpler; I'll look into that, too! They also have a Fate hack, but Fate just doesn't seem to be my cuppa <shrug>. Nota Bene -- It definitely has a couple of skeins of Horror going into the weave of their world... but I /think/ it's not too hard to tease those out or deprecate them, and use the rest of the setting. If you haven't looked at EP, it's probably worth your while. Also note -- the publisher has released their entire catalog under a CreativeCommons license https://eclipsephase.com/cclicense (and I mean the whole thing, artwork and all; except for a few pieces by one particular artist). So you can legally download & freely share, and even hack together your own version (and make THAT freely available!), if you want!

The full-bore Mythras engine is maybe a bit too much crunch, which is why I am looking more base-BRP-ish: I've tried Mythras (well, RQ6; same difference!) with a couple of these players previously, and apparently Combat Effects were a crunch too far. I can probably use the TDM/Mythras guns supplement, however... good call, and thanks! But you mentioning "cyber" reminds me that there's ANOTHER Mythras supplement, After The Vampire Wars by @jsnead, which is specifically an urban fantasy+SciFi setting. The author has whipped together some ideas for hacking his AtVW in an explicitly-Shadowrun direction (so did @Raleel IIRC)... which I might go with (instead of an Expanse-y direction). The SR setting offers some other assets for the audience in question, too... Hmmm... <ponder ponder ponder> And now that I'm thinking outside my prior (Expanse-centric) box, I recall that I previously put a fair bit of thought (and noticed some other people have actually uploaded some content here on BRPC!) into a different action-heavy science-fantasy-ish setting, so I might go that direction: a BRP take on the venerable Gamma World setting! URGH ... Choice is a good thing, but if I'm not careful I'm gonna begin chasing my own tail here ! NPC stats are relatively easy, yes; I can wing those (just like any other NPCs in BRP (or any other system I know well)). My main concern stats-wise is actually for the gear. I think many sci-fi fans see "gear" (and "the shopping trip") as important parts of sci-fi RPGs. (and I notice unhappily that a big downside of BRP'ized SR is the setting's strong "gear porn" tradition (which I don't have to indulge in (because newbie!), but still -- it wouldn't be SR without lots & lots of chromed-up street-sam & similar types). And all that crunch has NOT been worked-out in that "whipped together hack." So a fair bit of work still to do... If I'm using a reference setting (such as The Expanse) I want my gear to match the reference: if pistol-X is canonically more-dangerous than pistol-Y, I want my game to reflect that, but it's probably best not done as "wing it at the table". And if they move through the campaign from gun to bigger gun (and thence to BFGs) I don't want to scale up out of meaningful difference (i.e. one-hit-kill) 3 steps before the climactic scenario. Those sorts of balances -- and a robust catalog of non-weapon gear! -- is part of what I'm hoping other people have done.

Nice! TYVM!

I had picked The Expanse specifically because I know he has seen & liked it. His fiance thinks more action-y (less figuring-out, less strategy-and-planning) will be to his taste. I do take your point that I might be able to do a lot of the Expanse with narration, rather than mechanics ... I envision some combats (at least one in zero-G). A chase... probably 2 (chasing, being chased). At least one or two scenes of techie-types rolling their challenge (hack the computer, or repair the drives, or etc) against-the-clock with some looming danger, while the combat-types hold off forces that will stop the tech from saving them all. You know, classic action-adventure, with a sci-fi spin.

Basically, I'm looking for all the setting build-out; as I'm not using Green Ronin's crunch, I need BRP crunch. Personal gear, planetary vehicles, spacecraft, space-stations, etc.

I may be running a mini-campaign to introduce a newbie to RPGs... sci-fi, action heavy for the genre. I'm considering using The Expanse as the setting: the newbie likes it (probably more the TV show than the novels), and a familiar & well-loved setting is just ALL kinds of good, when introducing a newbie! I know of Green Ronin's official RPG but it's based upon the AGE system, and I don't know that system (and it's likely a short campaign, so learning (& teaching!) a new system is "unattractive"). BRP (and the extended family) is kind of my go-to engine for many things. Has anyone hacked it for The Expanse? And yes, I do know of M-Space, so I ask the variant question -- has anyone tuned M-Space (which is a good sci-fi toolbox, tune'able to many settings!) to run an Expanse-like setting? (fwiw, I'll re-post this query on the specific subforae here, and over on TDM's tapatalk site). I guess John Snead's Worlds United (also for Mythras) may be somewhere near-ish to what I want... tweak'able / re-skin'able...? There's also River of Heaven. That seems more pre-tuned to its setting, which is more-advanced than The Expanse. Again, with some tweaks and reskinning... maybe. I'm just leaving off the old Ringworld RPG. Not sure if any e-tailer has it, and I AM sure I don't want to pay crazy-collector prices for it! ... ... have I missed anything?

OK. TYVM for the update.

Uhhh ... I thought it was either Rick or MOB who had said that print options for the JC were still under consideration & investigation, with no decision made. If I misunderstood or have misremembered -- apologies!

Depends on what happens with the JC content, overall. I think Chaosium is looking into the issue of PoD'ing the JC stuff, but I'm not certain.

I think there's an ongoing issue where it's not clear, if you already know a spell, if there's a difference between learning "more points" of a spell, or learning a higher-level of that spell. Does "Heal 2" + "Heal 3" = "Heal 5" when learning? After that, can you just learn "Heal 1" and be at Heal 6? === At character creation, the assumption is you're learning from one cult, so you can "stack" points of magic and single-source your Big Spells. I don't think that works when learning magic from multiple sources...

I think it varies by culture. Orlanthi are radical-individualist "nobody can make me do anything" sorts (and also insular conservatives: "nobody can make us change!"); they recognize (and often even encourage) exceptions to the normative majority: better that girl become a well-adjusted Vingan than a ill-fitting Ernaldan (better for the woman (or vinga-gender), better for the family, better for the society). Initiation rituals are often mini-Heroquests where the Initiate-to-be discovers their god. Usually, I think, the results surprise nobody: everyone knew that boy was a careful & keen-eyed fellow, with an even temper and a knack for whittling. Orstan and carpentry was the future everyone expected, and when that's what happened, nobody was surprised. I mean... sometimes there ARE surprises. Initiation may be the "most predictable" of the heroquests, but it's still a heroquest, and it's one of personal self-discovery and connection with a god. The "Orlanthi All" applies here, I think... "all" boys go to Orlanth and "all" girls go to Ernalda... But not ALL-all the kids are clearly gender-identified, only an Orlanthi All or about 6/7; so there will be 1/7 of them that are helering/nandan/vingan/nongender kids. And even among all the m/f gendered kids, about 1/7 will go in un-traditional directions. (Does this actually mean that only about 5/7 (technically, 36/49 (OK, I admit -- that's splitting the odds FAR beyond what's reasonable or meaningful at the table!)) of the population is traditional Orlanth Males and Ernalda Female ...? ) === Up Dara Happa way, things are different. I think 90+ % of the nobility intiate to Yelm or Dendara, and I think there's heavy family & peer pressure to do so. I'm less clear on "the Lodrili" / peasant people. Down in Esrolia... well... ten thousand goddesses; what can I say?

This, I think. It also gives me an idea, variant of the above... I envision this "jester" type joking/mocking entertainer. Decidedly prankster-ish. Strong passion in "Loves to Mock Authority." Very strong (80%+) Illusion rune, maybe 65%-70% Disorder. Everybody's pretty sure he's a Eurmali, but nobody can PROVE it. He often hangs around any known Eurmali. Celebrates Donandar's holy days very ostentatiously, but -- somehow -- nobody can find him on Eurmal's. He's pure Donandar... he just likes people to be nervous around him... especially authority figures. He also has strong passion in Loyalty (Home Village / Stead / whatever) and/or Love(Family) and/or similar. He can't really get along with them (rather to his sorrow (damn that strong Disorder rune!)); but he adores the s--t out of every one of them, and tries to make their lives better... however he can...

Yeah, his brand definitely dominates that market. But 1 K / 2 SS : Soltak StormSpear. He turns into Sulky StormSpear otherwise. Don't forget the Dark Troll had a black leather bikers' jacket cuirass with his name picked out across the back in POW crystals. Nor the Mello Yello retrospective he posted... Mostali devices, clearly. Add a touch of handwavium. Implicit in the Gloranthan setting, even if you need to create the specific item: it fits entirely with the RAW vibe for the Mostali. Jumping/mobility magic (and of course fire magic!) for the rest.

It's also an intentional homage, I think, to a same-name / similar-goal project for the Runequest ruleset, back in the early 1980s.

If you have the time, it's well worth looking into. Current is 5e, but the rather-similar 4e rulebook is free (yeah, legally): http://www.warehouse23.com/products/ars-magica-4th-edition-core-rulebook The game is set in "Mythic Europe," defined as medieval Europe (late 1100s - early 1200s), but with much of the folklore and myth of the time "true." So when the peasants tell travellers of a witch in yon woods, or a holy hermit living in the mountains (or a dragon who settled just over the hill)... that's likely true. So were the classic old tales, such as the Greeks' telling of satyrs and nymphs, etc. There is the further conceit of "the Order of Hermes" -- a group of wizards who operate across Europe using a unified system of magic developed a few hundred years prior. Your characters play some of the wizards of the Order (and their allies). The magic system is the crown jewel of the game; it's probably the best "magic system" I've met. (it's pretty firmly set in a Western European perspective, and would be hard to Gloranth-ify). PM me (applies to others, not just soltakss) if you want to discuss it further, I think -- this is "Troupe Style play for RQ" not "Ars Magica". 😇