Is BRP/d100 good system for scifi?

[Nikoli]

3 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

I have run both very pulpy Space: 1889 games using BRP, as well as having an ongoing 2300AD game powered by BRp; and my playtest game for the BGB way back when was what became the monograph Outpost 19. My experience is BRP can handle wide variety of tones and styles - I'd be pretty confident of handling a Flash Gordan type game.

I agree. I’m rarely convinced that there are any limits to a percentile system, even with superheroes (a debated weakness). I think it just comes down to the creative design of other mechanics. 

With Flash Gordon or Star Wars, WEG used a single dodge roll against all attacks, which lasts the round, so that is one option. It reflects how the heroes tend to avoid attack. If you roll a success only a special or critical can now get through. (Perhaps luck points can temporarily raise the success level for defensive purposes.)

I think it always comes down to the additional mechanics to evoke the setting; I find the percentile system (100% plus) and BRP characteristics perfect. 

[ORtrail]

On 4/29/2020 at 10:37 AM, jackleg2010 said:

While I have never run BRP for a sci fi game, it is obvious that it can be done. is 

What you have to do is determine what type of setting you want to run with BRP. Flash Gordan, might be a no, while The Expanse is a yes.

 

I ran a time travel/dimension sliding campaign using BRP and it was great at jumping around to different time/places and levels of tech.  A few tweaks to the rules can help find the right flavor for a setting, like using a heroic option for hit points in a Flash Gordon setting, but being more gritty with The Expanse setting. 

BTW,  I have not forgotten about the blank fillable character sheet, I just got swamped over the weekend.  I'll get it done and post a link by this Friday.

Edited May 5, 2020 by ORtrail

[hix]

Here's something I used in my game with some blanks thrown in. Uses strike ranks and hit locations, so you might not need all of it, but here ya go.

Character Sheet Fillable BNW.pdf

[hix]

And here's the .odt if anyone wants it. This was made with the freeware and open source program LibreOffice Writer.

Character Sheet Fillable BNW.odt

[ORtrail]

Sorry, I've gotten sidetracked by a kidney stone passing.  Still in the works.

[clarence]

No problem. Get well soon. 

[Ian Absentia]

On 5/11/2020 at 8:49 AM, ORtrail said:

Sorry, I've gotten sidetracked by a kidney stone passing.  Still in the works.

The character sheet or the kidney stone?

Sorry!  Someone had to ask.  And it's probably no consolation, but I've been there.  Ugh.

!i!

[ORtrail]

On 5/15/2020 at 3:54 PM, Ian Absentia said:

The character sheet or the kidney stone?

Sorry!  Someone had to ask.  And it's probably no consolation, but I've been there.  Ugh.

!i!

Yeah, I can laugh now that it's over.  Took a trip to the ER and some sweet, sweet pain shots though. 

I'll be working on that character sheet tomorrow, that's the plan anyway. 

[Chaot]

Phil Stroud is playtesting a game he calls Space Cowboys right now based on the BGB. It's really well done. I was supposed to play in a group with him to test it out but things fell through. Space Cowboys is living proof that BRP does sci-fi well.

[ORtrail]

The mostly blank M Space character sheet, without hit locations.  Almost all the % spaces are not fillable right now -they change so much anyway, but I wanted to get something out.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/idd321o9m3cg7mq/M_Space_blank_Sheet.pdf/file

[g33k]

8 hours ago, Chaot said:

Phil Stroud is playtesting a game he calls Space Cowboys right now based on the BGB. It's really well done. I was supposed to play in a group with him to test it out but things fell through. Space Cowboys is living proof that BRP does sci-fi well.

Huh.

Any chance to get a look at his character-sheet (if it's done)?

[Chaot]

Yeah. He actually has all of his files posted in his discord channel so I don't think he's shy about showing them. Let me drop him a line and see if he'll swing by here.

[hix]

Got it. Anyone else interested in Space Cowboys playtesting just DM me. And thanks for the high praise, @Chaot

Edited May 26, 2020 by hix

[rsanford]

17 minutes ago, hix said:

Got it. Anyone else interested in Space Cowboys playtesting just DM me.

@hixcan you tell us anything about the setting or the mechanics (We know they are BRP)?

[hix]

Grab your plasma pistol, load up on adhesive grenades, and fire up an energy shield as you get ready for action in the sci-fi roleplaying game about building a legacy in the frontier of the galaxy. Play as a mutated animal hybrid, a cybernetically enhanced robo-freak, or an uplifted plant-thing in a world where anything is possible and freedom is as close as your starship’s airlock door.

Space Cowboys is a Game about folks on the edges of civilization doing what it takes to realize a vision of the future.  Build a merchant empire, found your own cites, create a government, found a mining corporation or unite the pirate tribes to conquer and plunder. Gonzo sci-fi is what my group calls it.

Generate your profession and backstory with the easy-to-use Gigs system, filling your character with life before you begin play.
New futuristic weapons, vehicles, armor and gear.
Control the fundamental forces of physics with your mind.
Simple and powerful starship creation and upgrade system.
Includes the Conesta Rho setting: Organizations, NPCs, Planets and Places ready for play.
World creation is fast and easy, create entire societies on the fly.
Gene freaking, Cybernetic enhancements and advanced drones.
Flexible system for creating and upgrading structures, vehicles and starships: Build cities from the ground up, design and operate humongus capital ships, create an army.
Fast and detailed combat using the Strike Rank system.
Uses simple and intuitive d100 core mechanic.
Skills and powers improve as you use them, no arbritary levels or experience points.

Original systems: Chargen inspired by Traveller, Starship Roles and Combat, Domain Play, an elegant use of the Fatigue system to determine encumbrance,  and more.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, hix said:

Grab your plasma pistol, load up on adhesive grenades, and fire up an energy shield as you get ready for action in the sci-fi roleplaying game about building a legacy in the frontier of the galaxy. Play as a mutated animal hybrid, a cybernetically enhanced robo-freak, or an uplifted plant-thing in a world where anything is possible and freedom is as close as your starship’s airlock door.

Space Cowboys is a Game about folks on the edges of civilization doing what it takes to realize a vision of the future.  Build a merchant empire, found your own cites, create a government, found a mining corporation or unite the pirate tribes to conquer and plunder. Gonzo sci-fi is what my group calls it.

Generate your profession and backstory with the easy-to-use Gigs system, filling your character with life before you begin play.
New futuristic weapons, vehicles, armor and gear.
Control the fundamental forces of physics with your mind.
Simple and powerful starship creation and upgrade system.
Includes the Conesta Rho setting: Organizations, NPCs, Planets and Places ready for play.
World creation is fast and easy, create entire societies on the fly.
Gene freaking, Cybernetic enhancements and advanced drones.
Flexible system for creating and upgrading structures, vehicles and starships: Build cities from the ground up, design and operate humongus capital ships, create an army.
Fast and detailed combat using the Strike Rank system.
Uses simple and intuitive d100 core mechanic.
Skills and powers improve as you use them, no arbritary levels or experience points.

Original systems: Chargen inspired by Traveller, Starship Roles and Combat, Domain Play, an elegant use of the Fatigue system to determine encumbrance,  and more.

This looks really, REALLY good!

Do you mind answering a few questions...?

Like... RE "Starship combat" -- will it handle big ships vs. big ships?  X-Wing scale "dogfighting"?

Like... is this aimed at a commercially-salable product? (it looks that way, to me)

Like... are you planning to release it under the BRP-OGL license?

 

[hix]

Thank you for your kind words.

Will it handle big ships vs. big ships?  X-Wing scale "dogfighting"?

Yes, from pirate corsairs to fighters to couriers. Still working on capital ship details, but the basics are in place.

a commercially-salable product?

Yes, I am hoping to release the game in the next few months.

are you planning to release it under the BRP-OGL license?

I hope so. Still waiting on Chaosium to define some things before I can determine if I have made too many changes to call my game BRP.

[g33k]

47 minutes ago, hix said:

Will it handle big ships vs. big ships?  X-Wing scale "dogfighting"?

Yes, from pirate corsairs to fighters to couriers. Still working on capital ship details, but the basics are in place.

a commercially-salable product?

Yes, I am hoping to release the game in the next few months.

Very cool!  TYVM!

 

48 minutes ago, hix said:

are you planning to release it under the BRP-OGL license?

I hope so. Still waiting on Chaosium to define some things before I can determine if I have made too many changes to call my game BRP.

If I understand their new OGL correctly -- and YOUR project correctly -- I think the only "prohibited content" you're at risk of infringing is some bit of Niven's Ringworld... which in many ways has a bunch of "generic sci-fi" elements (and thus may be hard-ish to avoid).  But Chaosium has clarified that "generic" elements (like Knights; they're in KAP in an Arthurian context, but fine in BRP-OGL so long as their not in a specifically-Arthurian context) are OK.

Have you copy/pasted any of the BGB?  That's a strict no-no.  The BGB text remains under (c) and is not OGL'ed.  OTOH, except for "prohibited content" (like CoC-style SAN rules) all the mechanics are free to re-implement in your own textual format...

How familiar are you with Ringworld (and the rest of Niven's Known Space)?  That's probably the key element.  So long as you can point to suites of non-Niven differences, I bet you're in the clear.  No ringworld mega-architecture (unless they're common as toadstools, and intermixed with Dysontech (Spheres & swarms) & other planetary-scale mega-architectures).  No stepping-disks, no Kzinti race, Puppeteer race, etc.

Then, as you say, there's this newly-opened question of degree-of-change... have you strayed "too far" from the BRP core...?

Rather than waiting for Chaosium to "clarify" in various social-media threads, I think it's time to reach out directly.  I'd e-mail them the bullet-list blurb above, and explicitly ask if it "looks like" it's eligible to be BRP-OGL'ed, and what (if any) likely stumbling blocks they see.  It sounds like you're close enough to "done" to be able to have a good (non-hypothetical) conversation with them, which is likely to be MUCH more productive than social-media threads!!!

 

[Nikoli]

8 hours ago, hix said:

Grab your plasma pistol, load up on adhesive grenades, and fire up an energy shield as you get ready for action in the sci-fi roleplaying game about building a legacy in the frontier of the galaxy. Play as a mutated animal hybrid, a cybernetically enhanced robo-freak, or an uplifted plant-thing in a world where anything is possible and freedom is as close as your starship’s airlock door.

Space Cowboys is a Game about folks on the edges of civilization doing what it takes to realize a vision of the future.  Build a merchant empire, found your own cites, create a government, found a mining corporation or unite the pirate tribes to conquer and plunder. Gonzo sci-fi is what my group calls it.

Generate your profession and backstory with the easy-to-use Gigs system, filling your character with life before you begin play.
New futuristic weapons, vehicles, armor and gear.
Control the fundamental forces of physics with your mind.
Simple and powerful starship creation and upgrade system.
Includes the Conesta Rho setting: Organizations, NPCs, Planets and Places ready for play.
World creation is fast and easy, create entire societies on the fly.
Gene freaking, Cybernetic enhancements and advanced drones.
Flexible system for creating and upgrading structures, vehicles and starships: Build cities from the ground up, design and operate humongus capital ships, create an army.
Fast and detailed combat using the Strike Rank system.
Uses simple and intuitive d100 core mechanic.
Skills and powers improve as you use them, no arbritary levels or experience points.

Original systems: Chargen inspired by Traveller, Starship Roles and Combat, Domain Play, an elegant use of the Fatigue system to determine encumbrance,  and more.

I’d love to see or hear more about the Starship design and combat rules. For me, that’s the key issue for BRP sci-fi. I’m very interested in seeing other approaches. I’m still reading M-Space (Mythras), and I have Worlds Beyond (I had high hopes when I snapped up a copy recently, but the ship stuff there strikes me as very unplayable - lots of errors in the text vs the worked examples, and the design process is a mystery of where to begin - but the setting is nice). But I would love other models. Only M-Space seems the current model for ships right now.
 

I’m currently trying to create a very simple design approach based off the Elric! demon summoning rules, with MPs as Manufacturing Points. Ships have characteristics, like Hull Con(struction) or Weapon Str(ength), or Ship Pow(er) etc. (Modelled on character stats.) Each MP gives 1D10 in a stat. With the demon method, that way there’s both a damage rating and a skill rating for investment. E.g., 10 MPs is 2D10 shields.
 

It’s just an experiment, but I’m tweaking it. The central idea to ground it is to link Traveller Tech Levels to percentile skill, so that the mean or median skill of a culture translates to TL. E.g., median specialist Physics of 100%, or a scientist with that, could develop TL 10 tech related to physics. By tying BRP percentile skills to TL, we can get rules for tech creation that maps onto Traveller or similar, and then likewise it sets design limits to ships based around a similar scale: 100 Manufacturing Points. My aim is to see if I can leverage the percentile system to set standards that would cover a lot of ground in sci-fi. (E.g., to develop AI is, in TL terms, about 14 if memory serves. Hence we need 140% in a skill and maybe 10 years - the ten year rule as a nice template for research.)

Given that TL 10 is stellar travel, I’m trying to see if I can build The Enterprise with a TL 10 optimal ship design rating of 100 MPs. (Enough to put 10D10 into all ship stats and then purchase weapons, shields, and sensors by using the demon rules for damage or percentiles.

If I finish writing it up, and it works, I’ll post it for feedback. I reckon it will need the insights of people far more skilled at design and gameplay than I.

[Chaot]

10 hours ago, hix said:

And thanks for the high praise, @Chaot

I loved your character generation rules. I went full random and the way it was laid out I could see a character developing right in front of me. It was very elegant.

One thing I did stumble on was equipment because I was unsure of what would be useful. Would you consider putting together some basic packs to take some of the guessing out of it? It could be as simple as a colonist, espionage, mercenary, diplomatic, rebel, scout and trade pack with basic tools that one would expect a character of that bent to have? That would have helped me know that I have the basics and could concentrate on the extra fun stuff.

And I still want to play! I've been busy with end of year 'teaching' stuff.

[rsanford]

11 hours ago, hix said:

Thank you for your kind words.

Will it handle big ships vs. big ships?  X-Wing scale "dogfighting"?

Yes, from pirate corsairs to fighters to couriers. Still working on capital ship details, but the basics are in place.

a commercially-salable product?

Yes, I am hoping to release the game in the next few months.

are you planning to release it under the BRP-OGL license?

I hope so. Still waiting on Chaosium to define some things before I can determine if I have made too many changes to call my game BRP.

Okay I spent about 20 minutes skimming this and will read it from stem to stern later. Very nice! Just curious what inspiration did you take from Revolution D100?

Edited May 26, 2020 by rsanford

[hix]

4 hours ago, g33k said:

Have you copy/pasted any of the BGB? 

Nope, all the text is either from the SRD or my own.

4 hours ago, g33k said:

Ringworld

I'm a Niven fan (and I'd love to actually play Ringworld), but nothing in this book could be considered his IP.

2 hours ago, Nikoli said:

Starship design and combat rules.

Design/upgrade: The upgrade rules are working fine with my home group, allowing a crew to increase shield regen, add turrets, missile bays, sandchuckers, more cargo, speed and acceleration. The design rules use these same upgrade modules to construct a ship from scratch. They take inspiration from games like Traveller, attempting to streamline that kind of system.
Combat: Ship crewmembers have roles like Pilot, Gunner, Sensor Op, Co-pilot. Their role affects their strike rank and available actions. This is an attempt to keep all players involved during a starship battle while retaining the same combat round structure as other types of combat. A crewman acts on his Dex rank plus his role's rank.
 

2 hours ago, Nikoli said:

If I finish writing it up, and it works, I’ll post it for feedback.

Looking forward to checking it out.

1 hour ago, Chaot said:

Would you consider putting together some basic packs

Absolutely, good idea.

1 hour ago, rsanford said:

what inspiration did you take from Revolution D100?

Revolution D100 has so many great ideas in it. I don't think any mechanical similarities survived editing, but the Powers, Weird Science and Adventuring sections really captured my imagination and gave me related ideas, not to mention the author's help to me in understanding how OGL, SRD and other alphabet soups work.

Thanks to all you for your interest and compliments. Those of you who frequent these boards may see the huge amount of inspiration I have taken from the posters here, especially those who have contributed to the scifi section. I owe a debt of gratitude all of these wonderfully creative folks.

Edited May 26, 2020 by hix

[Nikoli]

Hi,

Any more news about Space Cowboys? I was wondering if there are files available to look at.

Unrelated to that, I’ve been thinking about Star Trek a lot lately, and to avoid the trouble of figuring out all kinds of species stats I think a general ‘Way of X [e.g., Vulcan]’ might work as a percentile passion.

1/5th of The Way of X would add to relevant skills or situations (like a Vulcan using a science skill) and 1/20th to characteristics (e.g., a Vulcan using Int to play 3D chess, or even to Str due to their low gravity homeworld). The player asks the GM if it can apply. 
 

It would be a flexible source of modifiers while keeping the core statistics for all characters the same. It would work for species previously defined in the setting (Ferengi; Klingon; etc.) New species would need development.

[hix]

@Nikolii Hey I sent you a copy of the playtest book, I'm still working on Space Cowboys and getting ready to start playtesting again soon.

I like the idea of using allegiance as a racials. So there would be one WAY passion, just re-skinned for any race? Maybe the player can define his racials by describing X number of things that define that passion.

Edited June 28, 2020 by hix

[Nikoli]

1 hour ago, hix said:

@Nikolii Hey I sent you a copy of the playtest book, I'm still working on Space Cowboys and getting ready to start playtesting again soon.

I like the idea of using allegiance as a racials. So there would be one WAY passion, just re-skinned for any race? Maybe the player can define his racials by describing X number of things that define that passion.

Hi Hix,

I had the same idea. It could be three or four adjectives. So Klingon might be: warlike, honourable, brave, intimidating. Vulcan might be: disciplined; logical; telepathic; strong. (The latter would be a bonus purely for strength, whereas Klingons would get their bonuses for combat generally.) Humans: Cooperative, adaptable, just, curious. Etc.

I wanted to avoid working out specifics for each race/species, so the allegiance or passion would maybe start at 40% or 50% Way of X, and would increase as the player roleplayed and used their species traits. Like any skill, it could increase at the end of an adventure. 
 

Thanks for the book! I’ll take a look! 🙂