Shaira

I'll stick that in the "official" errata :thumb: Cheers, Sarah

Hi hoMonkulus, 1. Does it well. Also, based on optional rules selection plus combinations of weapons (Blaster Pistol, Disintegrator Rifle, etc) and armor (adaptive mesh, assault armor, etc) you can have a Space Opera gunslinging match with blaster bolts everywhere, or a very deadly combat where a single hit will likely take you down. 2. Scifi weapons and armor, plus some basic vehicles. There's no design system as such, and no lengthy lists of high-tech equipment, in the core book. 3. Yes. You have stun rules, weapons which entangle, stun, etc. Plus you can go for knockouts rather than lethal attacks, etc. 4. As optional rules they do, yes. The hit location system means your combat capabilities are very seriously compromised by certain wounds; additionally there's an optional fatigue system which produces hefty combat / action penalties after extended combat. You can also reduce your FP by 1 for every point of damage you take and reflect wound exhausation easily. 5. Very easy. There are 5 power systems - if scifi is your interest, then you can add Mutations and Psychic Powers extremely easily. 6. Not played either, though I've played D20. BRP is a far more intuitive system, with a single core mechanic that's so transparent you barely need the rules when running a game. The experience system is common-sense, there's no level-oriented artificiality. 7. There's a "sample bestiary", including real-world animals and a brief selection of "typical" fantasy, horror, and scifi fare. There are guidelines on creating critters - BRP critters use the same mechanics as PCs / NPCs, so it's very easy to add new ones. Hope that helps - enjoy your purchase! :thumb: Cheers, Sarah

One of the ways you could use spell level for the Magic spell "Conjure Elemental" is to affect the "magnitude" of the elemental. Defining "magnitude" would be a setting specific thing; for example, the old RQ3 elementals had magnitude determined by how many D6 they had in SIZ, POW, STR (IIRC), so a level 3 Conjure Elemental would conjure one with 3D6 in each. The ones given in the BRP book are indicated to be "average" elementals - extrapolating wildly, I'd call them level 5 elementals, with that "5" indicating their attack skill (level x 10%) and the number of D6 divided between their SIZ and POW (2D6 SIZ, 3D6 POW). Higher or lower levels would give you more or less pro rata. That's just an off-the-cuff extrapolation however - depending on your game, you might want to be more precise, or you might be happy with that. Personally I'm using the Sorcery rules for all types of Summonings. I'm also using the Binding rules for both Elementals and Demons, and putting in a lot more flexibility than the "summonings costs 9PP" base cost. It all depends how much detail you want. Just IMHO of course. Hope it helps! Cheers, Sarah

Hi Sverre, I think for now things are going just fine. We have a rules forum, and a more generic forum with appropriate sub-forums for non-rules discussions. As yet there's only Ashes to Ashes out as a setting; as we get more settings, the traffic about them will probably start appearing. If and when it does, you can hive off the posts to new fora if they get too numerous, which gives you a pretty organic way of deciding if you need one. The only thing I'd say is not to nest things too much. Category > Forum is about as deep as you'd want to go. Category being "RULES", "SETTINGS", "GENERAL", Forum being "ASHES TO ASHES", "ROME", "INTERPLANETARY". The individual settings forums can create subfora as needed (I could imagine INTERPLANETARY MARS, INTERPLANETARY VENUS, INTERPLANETARY RULES, for example), but a visitor to the forums needs to be able to see the top-level breakdown on a single page and think "right, I want to read up on Interplanetary - ah! I click that!". So not too much nesting. I personally think it would be nice as we go forwards to keep all BRP-related forums at least linked together some way, and possibly even all together on this forum in separate spaces if it's practical. Whether or not that would generate a lot of overhead with backups, data integrity, etc, or not I don't know. But a one-stop shop would make a great deal of sense and would create a lot of cross-pollination. I'd treat it case-by-case. IMHO it's going along nicely. :thumb: Cheers, Sarah

Hi Nick, So, are you saying Volley Fire should give you just one extra attack, regardless of the initial ROF of the missile weapon. So, a long bow gets 2 shots total, a thrown rock gets 3? (Rather than 4) Also, that *all* attacks are 5 DEX rank divided (so you need DEX 11+ to throw three rocks)? Also, what would you do with crossbows - 1 attack per CR? Cheers! Sarah

I'd just take an average in this case.

I noticed this too. IMHO I think the Volley Fire spot rule is unclear at best, and needs clarification. Here's my take: Volley Fire allows you to make a missile attack action every 5 DEX Ranks. Whatever that action is, it is Difficult. The definition of that action is "whatever you would normally be able to do with a missile weapon in 1 Combat Round". So, taking a Long Bow: normally you can loose 1 arrow in a CR at full attack chance. Using Volley Fire, you can do this every 5 DEX Ranks; your attack chance is Difficult, and you lose twice Fatigue Points - you can probably keep going for a couple of minutes at most. Second example: Thrown Rock. You can usually throw 2 rocks each CR, at full chance. Using Volley Fire, you can throw 2 rocks every 5 DEX Ranks, each attack being Difficult and Fatigue loss doubled. Third example: Light Crossbow. This is usually 1 attack every 2 CR (ie every two attack actions). Using Volley Fire, these two attack actions would equate to two lots of 5 DEX Ranks, ie 10 Dex Ranks. This would mean that every 10 DEX Ranks you could reload and fire (wildly!) your light crossbow. Attack chance is Difficult, you tire yourself out. Unless your DEX is above 20, you can still only loose 1 quarrel per round. That seems to make sense to me, though i.) my own experience with bows would tend to suggest that making the roll "Difficult" might be a bit generous (!), and ii.) Jason would be the ultimate arbiter! Hope that helps, Cheers, Sarah

At a rough guess I'd say this will probably happen naturally. For example, we would probably see an "Interplanetary" sub-forum pretty quickly, a "Rome" one, and so on. It would definitely make sense. Cheers, Sarah

My two penn'orth on this is that all these "mass damage" rules (including Poison, for example, if it does HP damage) can simply be applied to your overall HP score rather than divvying it up amongst your hit locations. I play systemic poison like this, for example, and I'd do the same in the case of large explosions (or fireballs, dragon breath, etc) scoring a direct hit - I really wouldn't bother rolling hit location for a direct hit with a hand grenade, although you could make a case for doing so with an indirect shrapnel hit or land mine. I guess the point is, that even if you're using hit locations, you don't have do use them *all* the time - just make sure it's consistent. I agree with Jason on the inevitability of houserules and preferences - BRP games seem to attract them! Cheers, Sarah

Just got my BRP book today! Very cool cover, really nice looking and chunky book! Nice one, Jason. Handsome tome! :thumb:

I think one of the issues with SF roleplaying is simply that the future ain't what it used to be. To future proof what you're writing beyond a few years you have to think *very big* indeed, otherwise you end up producing rules or settings that contain retro elements and you have the "alternate history" klooge to enable it (kind of like starting up a Twilight 2000 or Traveller OTU campaign now. My phone outsmarts a Model 2/bis every time...). The only SF writer I can think of from more than 50 years back who isn't riddled with anachronism is Cordwainer Smith, and his marvellousness mostly holds together from placing little emphasis on chrome and more on societal and psychological future development. Dune, although younger, is another prime candidate for still holding water - and for similar reasons. Does anyone remember Alternity? Tried to be a universal set of SF rules, IMHO ended up spreading itself so thin you had to rewrite most of the rules for your own setting (unless playing space opera). The conclusion I would draw from Alternity is that to get a usable set of SF rules, you more or less have to pin down the setting first (even though you can gloss over the fact by using generic names like "Space Opera", "Traditional SF RPG", "Super-tech", "Transhuman", whatever). So, when we sit here discussing SF rules for BRP, maybe we're talking about (at least) 3 different things: i.) Space Opera, Traveller-type stuff. ii.) Hard SF - 2300, Aliens-type stuff iii.) "Predict the amazing future and blow your mind" type stuff (a la Ian Banks, Cordwainer Smith, Stephen Baxter, Peter Hamilton, etc). Here's my take on it: 1.) BRP could easily be expanded to incorporate Hard SF chrome. Vehicle-design rules, laser & particle weapons, space travel & manoeuvre rules, planetary & star-system design, all extrapolated from what we currently know and our current understanding of physics and tech. This would fill out one area of the BRP "hard rules" which would be very usable. 2.) Doing the above would satisfy gearheads and provide a rules basis for the type i and ii SF styles above. For example, you could probably use the "hard SF rules" to fire up your Traveller game in BRP. Or more or less any other Hard Tech or Space Opera game. 3.) The Super-tech approach would need a loose set of assumptions to work from which would need to be predefined. You could use the Culture setting as the basis, or you could roll your own. You would then use that loose setting (sort of like the original OTU setting implied by the 3 LBBs in Classic Traveller - no real detail but heaps of assumptions) to fill out a set of rules - ie how intelligent starships work, what kind of geneering everyone can have, longevity effects, all that good stuff. So, that looks like 2 projects to me. The first - a Worlds Beyond rewrite involving the best of Ringworld minus the setting (but with the "implied" setting), to cover the Space Opera / Hard Tech games - effectively a "rules expansion" for BRP. The second - a completely new beast Which Has Not Been Written Yet, which might use some of the rules from the SF Rules Expansion (ie planetary design, some vehicles, etc), but would ignore stuff like computer programming skills, in favour of its own background - ie effectively a "setting sourcebook". How does that sound? Cheers, Sarah

Yes! That's the sort of thing. SF should be able to be mind-blowing. Definitely agree with the "playing an intelligent shapechanging starship" direction!

*Splutter* Lovely subtle erm... "pneumatic"... artwork, too... Makes Boris Vallejo look like a nun. Don't these planets have gravity? Defensive bonus - check. I reckon also a "multiple target penalty" to any attacks due to hordes of swaddled grannies emerging from the undergrowth clutching blankets and shouting "you'll catch your death of cold.... in my day it was full plate armor or you couldn't even hold hands on a first date... that's not fighting it's just jumping up and down...", etc, etc. Ahem. Sorry bout that everyone. :focus: Sarah

Thanks Jason - I'll pop it in the Clarifications if that's okay. Cheers, Sarah

Very cool indeed! :cool: I'm dusting off my full Almuric battle dress as we speak (basically studded tiara, awesome bracers, radium gun holster and little else. I'll probably add the chainmail bikini for modesty's sake - damn, don't those girls ever get COLD? :eek:). Seriously, that sounds great. I'm really looking forward to this. Cheers, Sarah

I think it would also be interesting to "push the envelope" a bit on SF too. It's great to have all the old Traveller space opera stuff covered - it's easy to play - but one of the great buzzes for me when *reading* SF is picking up on the author's ideas of what humankind is going to become in the future, ie not the 1970s in space! Possibly Perry Rhodan type stuff makes for a better and more easily accessed game, but I'd be interested to see game material derived from (off the top of my head) Peter Hamilton, Cordwainer Smith, Larry Niven, Stephen Baxter. Things like: i.) The impact of extreme longevity on humankind ii.) Ubiquitous and cheap AI iii.) Easy geneering iv.) Ubiquitous PSI or pseudo-PSI* v.) Stop being impressed by computers - the future probably won't even perceive them as discrete objects, they'll be everywhere and invisible vi.) Heaps of artificial lifeforms, and blurring of distinctions. vii.) Dimensional technology, including instantaneous travel in certain cases, harnessing of gravity, as yet unknown tech, a la Rudy Rucker viii.) Relativistic effects meaning temporal integrity is not required in societies - people may be out travelling for 10 years whilst 1000 years pass locally. Different evolutionary / technological levels constantly clashing, returnee culture shock, etc. ix.) Extreme evolutionary, social, philosophical and linguistic divergence as humanity spreads out over millennia. Not just Asimov-type divergence, but *major* freakout stuff. x.) Money as an interstellar lingua franca, but not really used within societies themselves. *This is pretty much round the corner right now. Some of the brainwave-reader control interfaces for PCs, contact lens sized HUDs, direct optical nerve transmission, and spatial interaction interfaces mean that transmitting messages or control directions by thought and receiving data, imaging, etc, directly into the optic nerve are probably less than a decade away. I'd expect a half-decent SF setting to be wayyyyy ahead of this. All of the above would blow the Traveller OTU out of the water, which is as it should be as the OTU is very 70s-retro. I'd really like to see a SF RPG which sets its sights *ambitiously*. We should be able to play something which raises the same issues - and allows you to play through them - as a good SF novel. We demand as much from fantasy**, so why not SF? :thumb: Cheers, Sarah ** chainmail bikinis, aryan elves, archers in tights and Wizards of Mass Destruction excepted

I hadn't heard of that either - sounds interesting. What sort of Howard stuff does it cover? Pretty much all the Howard I've read has been sword & sorcery or historical. I guess it wouldn't cover stuff like Almuric? Cheers, Sarah

I think it would also be interesting to contemplate a SF sourcebook for BRP which combines the best elements of Ringworld RPG (minus the Ringworld-specific content) with things like space combat and world generation from Worlds Beyond. That would be up there with the "magic book" as priority items for BRP rules expansions! Cheers, Sarah

Well, you do have to remember that we're two (or more) nations separated by a common language... Frankly, as a (ex-)professional linguist, I'm amazed sometimes we understand one another at all. >:-> Toodle-pip, ttfn, and cheerie-bye now, y'all! By 'eck, yon's a grandun and a reet pon-full, etc, etc, etc... Blood and sand! Sarah

The term "full damage" crops up several times in the Attack & Defense Matrix. I've understood it to mean "the damage which that type of attack would normally do", ie not the same as "maximum damage". So, a Greatsword "full damage" would be 2D8 on a normal success, 2D8 bleeding damage on a special success, and 16 damage ignoring armor on a critical success - damage bonus in all cases rolled and added afterwards. Maybe you could be absolutely clear by using the terms "normal damage", "special damage", and "critical damage" contextually, but you can get the appropriate info from the first sentence in the result description: Cheers, Sarah

Hi Steve, I'm hoping that the ONLY things that go in the Errata & Clarifications section are official, ie provided by Jason or similar authority. Naturally it's possible for others to add things that aren't actually official, but that's the nature of a wiki. I'll go and put a "Source" entry in the existing 2 items to show their origin - that should be a good start. Other stuff that isn't official / from Jason should probably go in the "Variants and Houserules" parts of the wiki, rather than the Errata. Cheers, Sarah

Ooops... I already posted an "Errata and Clarification" page after the Appendix - let me know if you want it changed! Cheers, Sarah

Hi all, I've just created a section in Trif's new Wiki for "Errata and Clarifications" to the new BRP1. It's intended for those issues which Jason (etc) has indicated are "official" corrections or clarifications to the BRP1 text (rather than houserules, etc). I've put two items in there so far - the clarification on the First Aid skill and the clarification on the "damage getting through a broken parrying weapon" bullet point at the bottom of the Attack & Defense Matrix. Please feel free to add as required - but please also keep these restricted to "official" errata! Hope that's all okay with you, Sverre! Cheers, Sarah

Excellent! Thanks Jason - that will cut down nicely on the first aid scrum following combats in future! One for the Wiki, I think! Cheers, Sarah

Hi all, I wanted to pick everyone's brains on how they usually handle First Aid. I'm trying to play the RAW right now, and came across a fairly comical scene following a very large combat. Basically, everyone had taken damage, and - using the hit location optional rules - generally 2 or 3 wounds in various places. Everyone had First Aid somewhere between 35% and 70%. Now the First Aid rules say that a given wound can only be First Aided successfully once, but on a Fail you can wait one Full Turn and try again. In actual play, without undue time pressue, this resulted in everyone more or less queuing up and First Aiding one another until every single wound taken had been successfully first aided by 1D3 points. In some cases this meant characters regaining as many as 9 HP in the First Aid session post-combat. Whilst following the rules (as far as I can tell), this didn't quite feel right, to the extent that I'm thinking of houseruling that any wound can only be First Aided once, successful or not. What do you think? Am I just being too stingy with healing? Cheers, Sarah