Shaira

I think a "Seat-of-pants" smilie is in order, for sure! :party: How bout it Trif? Sarah

p206 says you suffer a -50% attack penalty on missile attacks if the target is "moving fast". I'd take this to mean you move 30m in a CR (p190) and can take no other action than self-defense (parry or dodge), which would be a Dodge. As indicated on p191, this Dodge attempt would be Difficult, and could only be made against the first missile attack in the CR. This would represent running as fast as you can and trying to avoid being aimed at by archers. If you wanted to, you could use the Fight Defensively rule on p191 to get a second Dodge attempt. This would take up an action, so you could only move up to 5m, and would probably also be a Difficult skill roll as you're dodging a missile attack. I'd say this Fight Defensively option would represent actually trying to evade, ducking and moving from side to side. You'd get two Dodges, but I'm not sure in this case whether the -50% attack penalty for "moving fast" would apply; I'd probably say it wouldn't. So, two options: run like hell, -50% on attacker's skill, plus a single Difficult Dodge roll; or, evade like hell, attacker's skill unchanged, but you get two Difficult Dodge rolls. Makes the choice a bit more tactical. Cheers, Sarah

I think you might be mixing up Knockout Attacks with Stun / Subdual Attacks. Knockout Attack (p226) requires a Difficult attack roll, followed by rolled damage (armor protects). If damage exceeds the Major Wound value of the target, it's Knocked Out for 1D10+10CR. Don't roll Hit Locs - the Difficult attack simulates aiming for the head. Stun / Subdual (p232) has 4 options; the last involves weapons specifically designed to Stun (Stun Guns, etc). With these, you match Weapon Damage vs Target HP, and stun the target for CR equal to damage on success. Armor may or may not protect, depending on weapon used and armor worn - see the Spot Rule for more details. With a Stun Gun (etc), you don't need to hit the target's head. Hope that helps, Cheers, Sarah

The following is all IMHO, of course, but whilst Decipher wrote a nice magic system per se, I don't really think it fits the Middle-earth milieu as Tolkien imagined it. You don't see wizards racking up and shooting lightning bolts around the place or bringing castle walls crashing down, for example; you also don't get the Art vs Lore dichotomy, all the "sub-creation" stuff, which Tolkien talks about. IMHO it also doesn't adequately distinguish between the very different "magical" abilities of, say, Elves, black sorcerors, and the Istari, nor the "spirit investment" required to create Enchantments. The issue I guess is that the FRP trope presupposes wizards firing fireballs and flying around the place - sort of "magic-as-artillery"; this never actually happens in LOTR, despite Tolkien often being cited as the inspiration for FRP. In a certain sense, Middle-earth isn't actually a good example of a "typical" FRP setting - not really any clerics, relatively few monsters, no fireballs, and so on. It really depends whether you're looking for a set of rules to roleplay *in the spirit* of Middle-earth, or whether you just want to use Middle-earth as a setting for playing "standard" FRP. If the latter, then pretty much any decent magic system can be bolted on to BRP and you can make do; if the former, then I don't think there's anything out there at the mo. Don't get me wrong - I thought the Decipher rules were a good effort, far better than MERP at getting under Middle-earth's skin, and there are some cool essays in the magic chapter. They clearly had to make compromises on the fidelity of the rules to give it mass-market appeal, though, and it doesn't IMHO match what Tolkien describes as "magic" - that's all. Cheers, Sarah

Out of interest, Fergo, what approach are you taking to the magic system? One of my personal beefs with applying FRP magic systems to Tolkien roleplaying is that they simply don't fit. Tolkien, in his fiction and also in his essays and letters, was quite specific about the nature of "magic" in Middle-earth. A few years back I was briefly involved in discussions about a game called "Song of Arda", which was an attempt to use Pendragon as a basis for Middle-earth roleplaying. I was working on cultural archetypes and magic system; whilst real life got in the way (!) I've kept at it on and off since then, gradually concluding that - for me - the rules system at the mo which comes closest to offering mechanics which reflect Middle-earth *magic* is HeroQuest. However, I'm not hugely enamored of HQ for roleplaying in general - for me, it's a bit too arbitrary and abstract, although I do think it's a very thought-provoking system. For Middle-earth magic, however, IMHO it works well. For discussion, here's a couple of snippets of what I've been toying with: 1. TYPES OF MAGIC FOUND IN MIDDLE-EARTH LORE - including Enchantments and Runes of Power. Can be used by Men, although they require the sacrifice or "Investment" of part of your soul to create (such as Sauron did with the One Ring). NATURAL MAGIC - including Affinity / Feat Magic and Innate Talents. These are natural abilities provided by the Valar to the Elves; Men can use Affinities as though they were HQ Initiates (Elves are Devotees). THE BLACK ARTS - this stuff twists your soul, but Men can learn it relatively easily, though at great personal cost. Includes Domination and Necromancy. THE WHITE ARTS - Words of Command (Countering Magic) and Words of Guard (Protection Magic). These are scholarly arts which can be learned by Men at great expense of time and effort. 2. GENERATING "ARTHEDAIN" CHARACTERS Arthedain Homeland Keyword Occupations Available: Requain, Soldiers, Healers, Crafters, Nobles, Merchants, Scholars, Farmers Native Abilities: Speak Sindarin, Read/Write Sindarin, Revere [Vala] Typical Personality Traits: Melancholy, Distant, Proud Typical Relationships: Family, Kingdom Magic: Arthedain with Elven blood may have 1-3 Affinities or Talents (see Magic). Those without Elven blood may not use Magic, although they may attempt to acquire knowledge of Lore or of the Black or White Arts. Religion: Reverence of the Valar, particularly Manwe Common Names: Men – Aragorn Women – Arwen Religion The Arthedain revere the Valar. Like all Dunedain, their religious practises are strongly influenced by the Elves. Those few Dunedain with Elven blood and who possess one or more Affinities will tend to revere the Valar who share those Affinities (if any); other Dunedain will profess a general reverence or will gravitate to reverence of a Valar in keeping with their profession (thus a Roquen may call on Tulkas in battle, for example). Note that individuals revering Valar such as Aule may be skilled in Enchantments, as the Schools of Enchanters in the Dunedain lands primarily revere Aule. 3. MAGIC GAINED FROM REVERING THE VALAR (sample "Cult") Yavanna Kementári (Palùrien) Giver of Fruits, spouse of Aulë Yavanna Kementári’s first name means "Giver of fruits" and her surname Kementári means "Queen of the Earth". She is also known as Palúrien. She is the wife of Aulë and is responsible for the Olvar (flora) and Kelvar (fauna) of the world. When she has taken visible form it has been as a tall woman in green or a great tree spilling golden dew on the earth. In many ways she resembles the Earth Mothers of many mythologies. After Eru allowed Aulë's creations, the Dwarves, to survive, Yavanna feared that they would cut down all the trees in Middle-earth. Eru answered her plea by creating Ents to protect the trees. The Eagles also came from the song of Yavanna and Manwë. Both the Ents and the Eagles are the result of the inhabitation of kelvar and olvar by "spirits from afar" summoned by the thought of Yavanna. The Two Lamps were created by Aulë at Yavanna's request, and their light germinated the seeds that she had planted in Middle-earth. Following the destruction of the Lamps by Melkor and the withdrawal of the Valar to the far West and the guarded realm of Valinor, it was Yavanna who sang into being the Two Trees that gave light to the land of the Valar. Affinities: Earth Queen (Golden Dew, Two Trees Song) Kelvar (Speak to Beasts, Song of Eagles, Fill with Spirits from Afar) Olvar (Bless Plant, Fruitfulness, Protect Trees, Plead for Ents, Fill with Spirits from Afar) ***** Obviously the above is written for HeroQuest, but most of it is pretty trivial to convert to use with BRP. I've been thinking recently of how the magic in particular could be translated into BRP - basically a version of the HQ Affinities & Feats system but a bit more "concrete" (and obviously using percentages ). IMHO, Tolkien's magic really does capture a sense of wonder and enchantment which isn't really reflected in mainstream pseudo-Vancian magic systems, but which the HQ rules can allow you to approach. What do people think? Cheers, Sarah

That's a great article Ray - thanks very much for writing and posting that. We owe you a huge debt for inventing battle magic and rune magic, plus those great examples throughout the rules! I used to read Rurik's saga again and again when I was first learning RQ in the early eighties - you're right, it made a *huge* difference to how quickly you could pick up the rules. Even now, thirty years on, BRP Fantasy (ie RQ++) is still my go-to system of choice. When you consider its contemporaries, that's outstanding. :thumb: Cheers, Sarah

Personally out of all the power systems the only one I find is "on its own" is the Magic system. I use all the others side-by-side (Sorcery, Mutations, Psychic Abilities, Super Powers) and find them pretty consistent across the board. I think with the Magic system its the extremely flexible, multi-functional nature of the spells which differs from the other 4 power systems, not the rules themselves; also, some of the spells (Lightning, etc) seem to be easily extremely high-powered. For example, the "Lift" spell basically combines 4 effects: Telekinesis, Fly, Feather Fall, and "Hurl Object For Damage"; "Perception" is every Detect Spell ever thought of, etc. Personally I prefer spells to be more tightly defined, which is why Sorcery works better for me. I haven't tried using Magic alongside all the others, however, and it may be that the skill level requirements, relatively high POW costs for high-level effects, etc, may balance out, with Magic being the flexible manipulation of magical power which gets very powerful at high levels, whilst the other power systems are more rigidly defined and therefore "low power". I do get the feeling that houseruling Magic spell levels to be equal to spell skill / 10 rather than INT/2 could give you more control over its in-game effectiveness, too. No beginning characters casting 8D6 lightning bolts from their staves, etc. Give it a whirl - it'd be interesting to see how they all stack up. Cheers! Sarah

Hi all, Here's my take on the BRP SR thing: Dodges and Parries are unaffected by Strike Rank - you can do them normally, use the -30% rule, they don't cost SRs to do, etc (BRP p202) HOWEVER, you can only do one Dodge or Parry per SR; if 2 opponents attack you on the same SR, you can only defend (either Dodge or Parry) against one of them (BRP p202) SIZ SR modifier only affects melee weapons (BRP p202) Missile Weapons have a Weapon SR of 0, *and* a Rate Of Fire. The assumption is that ROF refers to the optional "RF" column in the weapons tables (p257), *not* the "Attk" column, as the former is specifically for SR use. MULTIPLE ATTACKS: If your SR with an attack is 5 or less, you can make multiple attacks (SR 5 goes on SRs 5 and 10, SR 3 goes on 3, 6, 9, etc). Note that this replaces two standard BRP rules: the splitting atts over 100% rule, and the Weapon "Attk" rule. Note that the assumption is that every additional attack is at full percentage; no divides. MULTIPLE ATTACKS W. MISSILE WEAPONS: The RF column writeup on p257 gives an example of figuring multiple missile weapon attacks, and clearly shows you add in a +3 SR mod for notching another arrow. So, if your Longbow SR is 2, you can attack once at SR 2, then add +3 for notching another arrow, and +2 for adding your DEX SR again, to attack for a second time at SR7. IMHO the above rules are consistent and clear (although requiring some careful reading !) but *different* from RQ2/3, which is fine. The only thing missing for me is the 100%+ multiple attack rule, which I like. I'm currently adding it back in as an optional rule, as follows: So there you go. Not perfect, but workable. Incidentally, the decision that all 100%+ split attacks occur at the same SR derives from the fact that SRs *do not* refer to a second-by-second action countdown - I find it's always worth reminding myself of that! I've been playing the above SR rules in my campaign for the past few months and have found no problems - in actual play it feels basically the same as RQ3, with a minor variation around the Dodge and Parry rules. Ganging up on foes is now extremely important - whittling down those defenses, attacking on the same SR, etc. One thing I'm toying with is whether or not you can actually *delay* your SR to be able to double-up with someone slower on their SR, to more effectively bypass a target's defenses. I'm currently saying no: my rationale is that your SR is all bound up with your overall combat performance, skill levels (including Dodges and Parries, etc), and that *deliberately* slowing down is tantamount to deliberately choosing to react more slowly, etc, and has all kind of side-effects. We'll see. Cheers! Sarah

I'd be interested to know more, but to be honest I'm a bit confused how you plunge into the "abyss" of the 1790's enlightenment revolution. The Enlightenment is the era of scientific discoveries applied practically - canals, railways, large-scale factory production, expert cartography, the "Lunar men", periodic tables, modern scientific techniques, political theory, manners, early Napoleonics, George III, Jane Austen, etc, etc. Perhaps you could provide a bit more info? I hope I don't sound too negative - or are you specifically looking at French revolution or Peninsular War or Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell type fantasia settings? In which case maybe less emphasis on the "Enlightenment" aspect might be appropriate. Cheers, Sarah

Oops. Looks like an "unresolved programming opportunity" to me . Them goddam pesky apos'trophe's's get you every time. >:-> Sarah

Blind King's Hill? That sounds Pavis / Gloranthan... Surely not? Do tell more! Sarah

I think this is where the RQ3 "Ki" skill concept would be useful. It's a much tougher-to-improve form of MA which personally I would require an MA score of 90% before you could even *start*, but whose default result is an automatic critical, costing 1PP for the "Ki" attack. My take would be: 1.) Have a Fist attack of 90% 2.) Have the Martial Arts (Special Fist Attack School) skill at 90% 3.) You start the "Exploding Fist" Heroic Skill (Ki skill) at 5% (your critical level with the MA skill). The "Heroic" (ie Ki) skill allows you to spend 1PP before you make your Ki attack, which results in an automatic Critical. At beginning level it makes no difference, but +5% training with a "Ki master", and you have a Ki skill of 10%; now the skill starts making a difference. For 1PP, you have a 1 in ten chance of a critical fist attack, ignoring armor. Improvements to Ki skills, whether by experience or training, are rolled against the "parent" skill level (ie your MA skill of 90%), not your Ki skill score - it's tough to improve. And so on, and so forth. Polished a bit, there might be a system there. I'm fiddling with it Cheers, Sarah

I've been looking at Ki skills again recently. I think that might definitely be the way to go for the "supernatural" end of the spectrum - the "super" or "heroic" skills. It might require writing a paragraph or so for each skill which has a "super" or "heroic" derivation, but the game mechanism is there, and it seems pretty good. For me, that just leaves the middle ground, the "expert human fighting school master" aspect of MA to deal with. At the moment, I'm toying with dividing the MA skill into lots of different maneuvers - a bit like your "nerve pinch" maneuver, which would then have a "Quivering Palm of Death" Heroic skill. Each school would then teach different MA skills, potentially for the same standard skill. You'd have "Nerve Pinch" on the one hand (pardon the pun), and "Exploding Fist" on the other - both are MA skills on the Fist Attack, both have Heroic Skills derived from them. That would be the detail. As a "general" skill rule, you'd have the "standard" MA skill in the BRP book, plus a "generalised" Heroic skill on top of it (perhaps dealing automatic criticals, as per the RQ3 "generalised" Ki weapon skill. Then again, I sometimes sit back and wonder if it's just gilding the lily... >:-> Cheers, Sarah

I'm trying to get my head round this too. The issue I see is the definition of "Martial Arts" itself. It could be two things - and to some extent it's trying to be. i.) A special esoteric above-black-belt set of secret techniques which unlock extraordinary abilities in a very highly skilled combatant. ii.) The set of maneuvers and fighting techniques taught by "combat schools" the world over throughout history - be it China, Japan, fencing masters, the Musketeers, whatever. The implication is that the "basic" weapon skills (ie "Great Sword Attack"), no matter how high, are predominantly relatively undisciplined skills ("I swing my great sword and hit it") which have largely been puzzled together by the individual combatant and don't have the finesse of someone who's been taught the corresponding Martial Art. However, I fail to see how Great Sword 150% is somehow "lacking" in this respect. I've always assumed that someone gaining great skill in a weapon is already figuring out advanced techniques for themselves. And, if they opt for training, they're going to some fighting school or seeking out some hoary old master on a mountain somewhere and learning his secret techniques. In other words, I've always assumed the basic functions of Martial Arts are already subsumed in the generic armed weapon skill. However, I *do* like the idea of fighting schools and esoteric techniques. So the way I'm playing this at the moment is that Martial Arts provides a series of learned (ie trained) moves which compliment your fighting skill. Hence, Martial Arts can *only* be learned by training, never by experience, and also can never exceed your corresponding weapon skill. I'm thinking too of including some "special maneuvers" by fighting school - but there are already a lot of these distributed throughout the BRP book that you have to be careful not to duplicate. Sorry... no particular structure to my ramblings above, just brainstorming. Cheers, Sarah

Ah... that little bird didn't mention it was going to put the news on the website... So much for the cloak and dagger! Good news all round though!

*emerges mysteriously from shadows* Pssst! Over here...! A little bird just told me that Chaosium won't actually be looking at the scenario comp submissions till Monday morning, so the *de facto* deadline is (extremely unofficially ) midnight on Sunday 3rd August. Of course, you didn't hear it from me. I have not been here. I did not say this. This message will self-destruct, etc, etc. >:->:thumb::cool: Cheers! Sarah *fades back into shadows*

Thanks Jason - those are very cool. Especially the Planetocopia - I'm going to spend a few hours drifting through those -right up my street! Cheers! Sarah

Definitely got potential. I'd keep it relatively abstract for now, rather than trying to model any actual conditions. Also, I'd be inclined to incorporate some pretty serious trait shifts, rather than just a check, in the cases of things like temporary insanity bouts. Checks for failed SAN rolls seem about the right level, though. I like the idea! It's got legs. Or tentacles. Or... whatever... :thumb: Cheers, Sarah

Now that looks good - thank you! I'll have a read of those articles - especially the brown dwarf one - and digest the tables. Excellent! Agreed. Personally I'm *fascinated* by the current exoplanet discoveries and the latest Mars probe - things like the relative available of planets in the habitable zone and the presence of water (in whatever form) will hugely affect how civilizations will approach colonization. Only a little of either, and colonization is a long, hard slog, with outposts in marginal places (asteroid bases, deep-space stations, habitat domes on airless or exotic worlds), people geneering livestock to survive in domes, terraforming, and a lot of conflict over resources, a high-tech entry level for colonies; a lot of both, and life is everywhere, we eat lots of weird local fauna, no need to terraform or populate airless worlds unless they're strategically importance, plenty of room for populations to expand into, possibilities for small groups to set up their own low-tech colonies, etc, etc. Admittedly it's hard to future-proof a scifi setting, especially with the speed at which the goalposts are moving these days! Cheers, Sarah

I guess it depends on the style or genre of game you're running. SF in particular is a pretty broad church, ranging from Han Solo's magic blaster (single-kill on power-armored foes), huge snake beasts with big mouths living in caves in asteroid belts (what *did* that thing eat apart from spaceships?), and Ninja Wizards in Space, through the brave pseudoscience attempts of Star Trek ("subspace distortions are affecting the warp core, captain - we're losing structural integrity", etc, etc), to the simple wonder of 2010, where everyone gets in a flap about chlorophyll and people get nauseous on spacewalks. I personally like to know that my astrography and planets are "realistic" according to our current understanding - especially when PCs have skills like "Atmospheric Analysis" and enormously sophisticated sensor suites. With fantasy settings you always have the option of explaining away unrealistic geography and climate by saying "the Gods done it" (ie Glorantha), or you can try and make sure the basics of geomorphology, etc, are followed and then overlay your setting on a "realistic" world - sort of Harn, Tekumel, etc. I remember once buying the enormous map of Arduin and the *huge* world book provided by Emperor's Choice; I waited with great anticipation, but when I opened them the geography was so off whack I could never bring myself to use it - my players would just laugh. Mountains just ain't like that. The moreso with scifi. I also find that following reasonably realistic worldgen frequently throws up results more exotic that I'd come up with on my own, and I have a reasonable satisfaction that things like temperature, gravity, atmosphere will "make sense" for when I need some chrome to throw into my descriptions. As a GM I need to believe in the integrity of my creation if the players are too Recently all the brown dwarf and exoplanet stuff, plus findings from Mars and Titan, the nature of Saturn's rings, that weird hexagonal storm at its pole, etc, have made me realise that my star and worldgen stuff are probably outdated, and as I'm not an astrophysicist I'm looking for a "crib sheet" of the major changes and discoveries. *But*, it's a personal preference. If your game is light on chrome and pseudoscientific gobbledigook (which I like :thumb:), and plays more like the Stainless Steel Rat than Larry Niven, then you probably don't need much astrophysical blurb, and can make do with a series of fairly similar "Earths in Space". Heck, IIRC even Foundation barely described the chrome of the worlds of Hari Seldon - they could've been anything. A long answer to a short question! Cheers, Sarah

Why wouldn't you use the existing Splitting Attacks rules? Ie, if you have over 100% in an attack skill, you can make multiple attacks by dividing your skill to no less than 50% (so 100% would give you 2 attacks at 50%, 150% would give you 3 attacks at 50%, or two attacks at 75%, etc). Cheers, Sarah

Thanks guys - that's some great information. For starters I've order a copy of World Building - I'm holding off on GURPS Space due to the price (and the difficulty in buying a quick PDF!), though it does look like my next port of call if World Building isn't "up-to-date" enough. Galaxiki I did know about already - not quite the right level of "exposed" info, but still a cool site! Cheers, Sarah

Hi all, I'm looking around for an up-to-date star system and planetary generation system - the sort of thing we had in Traveller Book 6, 2300AD, Space Opera, Worlds Beyond etc, but up-to-date with latest astrophysics and planetary science thinking. It doesn't have to be a RPG system - I'd be happy with the "raw" info and generate my own system from it. Does anyone know where I can dig up the "best" in current thinking for this? Cheers! Sarah

Yup - finally got myself a PDF of Dreamlands... :happy: :thumb: Sarah

I use Campaign Cartographer 3. It's very attractive, and whilst it has a fair learning curve due to its CAD-like interface, it produces some very professional looking results. It has Campaign, Dungeon, Spaceship, and City extensions. Also there are plug-ins to emulate many popular map styles, including Mercator, John Speed, the old ICE Middle Earth maps, and others. I'd recommend it. It's a bit pricey, and will take a bit of time to learn, but it has good manuals and gives excellent results. Cheers, Sarah