BRP Starships pdf - comments welcome

[clarence]

Lots of interesting suggestions here. Here are some of my reflections:

 

- Turning the book into a complete, freestanding game feels like a last resort. There are fully functional systems around and another clone seems a bit unnecessary. I can see the practicality in having all rules in one volume, but I'm just not appealed by the thought of describing INT, combat rounds and so on. Though I must say that Atgxtg's take on the d100 system looks very promising...

 

- Going independent is very tempting and DriveThru/RPGnow is where I get my files too. It seems like a good place to have the book. And Lulu for the print version.

 

- I will keep Kickstarter as an option. If it turns out to be the best choice I could use a bit of support though (at least with the voice-over - I will let you know when the audition starts).

 

- I'm not too keen on making it a monograph. I really like the concept, but as the design concept for the books are fixed I think it will not suit this project very well. The design of BRP Starships/Space is an important part of the project for me, I just think it wouldn't be the same without it.

 

- I will keep the discussion going with Alephtar Games. I will know more in late April.

[Ethereal]

Just wondering if there is anything new?

[clarence]

Yes, lots of new material is written! Sorry for being so quiet.

 

- Layout of Psionics chapter is finished. It is based on three categories of power: Sense, Mind & Matter, with three Circles (levels) in each.

 

- Layout of Social Conflict chapter is finished (with simplified "status fight" rules included, to make switching back and fourth between social conflict and physical combat as smooth as possible, or let them continue side by side).

 

- I'm writing the third iteration of a chapter on Organizations, finally finding a way to make the rules work 

 

- Quite a lot of additions here and there throughout the book (Aliens & Occupations, Special Worlds, more examples and so on).

 

- New artwork from Matthias Utomo and David Sladek

 

- At the moment it's 130 pages - Organizations will add another 6-10 pages to that

 

I haven't heard anything from Atgxtg about vehicles/gear/augmentations. I hope to get an update from him soon.

 

 

Organizations has been very fascinating to work on but it has also been quite difficult to find a good mechanic for it. The idea is to let organizations be quite abstract entities, ranging from small community-driven anti-environmentalist groups up to galaxy-spanning religions. They can get involved both in conflicts with each other on a large, abstract scale and at the same time interact directly with the characters (through benefits, acting as patrons and so on). The large scale can be used to see for example what happens when a small alien colony is established on a human-dominated world. Will they be accepted, how big must they become to have any influence and what will happen if they are denied influence? What paths can they choose from to better their situation? Together with the social conflict chapter these rules has done quite a lot to change the way I play and think about BRP. It has opened up more options and lead me away from the traditional violence-heavy gameplay.

 

Still nothing decided on how all this will be published though. I hope to make some decisions soon : )

[RosenMcStern]

 

Organizations has been very fascinating to work on but it has also been quite difficult to find a good mechanic for it.

 

A very interesting mechanics for handling "city skills", mainly written by Soltakss I think, has been left out of Wind on the Steppes. Not because it was not good but because there was no room and we could not focus so much on the cities in a nomad supplement. I have been toying for a long time with the idea of publishing it as a free add-on for WotS and all other medieval supplements.

Perhaps these rules might provide an inspiration for you? If Olivier and Simon agree we might pack a simple PDF and put it somewhere available.

[Zit]

These rules are from Simon, so it is his decision. I only know that Gianni planned to publish them in his free webzine The Hanging Garden.

[clarence]

Perhaps these rules might provide an inspiration for you? If Olivier and Simon agree we might pack a simple PDF and put it somewhere available.

 

That would be very interesting!

[RosenMcStern]

Oh Mighty Soltakss, we hereby summon Thee to ask Thy permission to spread Thy wisdom...

[rolls Demonology... sorry, SIMONology]

[soltakss]

Unfortunately, the demon summoning did not reach Bashkortostan, the wind must have stopped at the Steppes and not skipped over the few hundred miles to the north, perhaps the torrential rain stopped it.

 

I have no preference to how it is published.

 

Gianni did ask first, so if he'd like to keep it in the fanzine, then so be it.

 

I'll drop him an email and see what he says.

[GianniVacca]

I'll publish them in ePub format only, so I guess they can also be published as PDF. What do you guys think?

[Baron]

I'd love to see a pdf, thanks!

[clarence]

I read the city rules quickly last night and enjoyed them very much. They make it quite easy to tell the difference between cities and how that affects the characters. Clean and simple : )

 

If they can be integrated into BRP Space, as Paolo suggested, would be nice, but I'm not sure how they will fit in with my mechanics for organizations. They partly cover the same ground but they do not contradict each other, so that's a good start.

 

The basis for the organization rules are similar to the city rules. An organization is given some stats (Influence, Size, Resources, Strength & Power) and Attributes fill the same role as skills in the city rules. Attributes can be Strong Leader, Dedicated Followers, Politics and so on, and are used to reflect the Ideas of the organization. So, not too far from the city rules but not exactly similar either. Skills and Attributes are easily exchanged I think, but the stats are slightly more difficult.

 

The reason I wanted the stats is that organizations can be given a conflict pool (hit points) and then fight (with attributes) for dominance over a world, in a colony, a subsector or on any scale actually. They are also tied to the chance a character has for getting benefits from an organization, once s/he has become a member. This way they work both on a highly abstract level and on a very concrete character scale.

[clarence]

I just got the first print proofs from Lulu!

 

 

 

[Baron]

You are so far ahead of where I thought. Kudos!

[clarence]

Thanks! I've been pressing on for a few weeks now : ) And the quality of the Lulu print was much better than I anticipated. Having read about all the problems people seem to have with Lulu it was a pleasant surprise. Text, tables and artwork have translated very well. There will be some minor adjustments, mostly typographic though.

 

No final decisions have been made about how to publish the book. I have narrowed it down to either Alephtar Games or self-publishing with a license from Chaosium. I hope to have some answers soon.

[Sunwolfe]

I've been a lurker, hovering around the edges of this thread. Being more of a fantasy/ancient than a scifi gamer, I do play SW D6 once in awhile. I just want to offer my congrats and well wishes for you guys and your project. This is seriously looking good and that print job by Lulu...very nice. As soon as you decide on publishing, I'll be buying. It's always cool to see BRP fans still have room to be creative and produce fantastic material. Keep up the excellent work!

 

Cheers!

[colinabrett]

Hi,

 

Thanks for all your hard work on this, Clarence (and all the others on this board). I'm using these rules for a Star Wars campaign. I do have one question, if I may?

 

I tried building a Millennium Falcon-type ship. To allow decent cargo sizes (50 tonnes), I had to use 50 cargo modules. This is what I had:

 

Name: Southern Star

Class: Light Freighter
Engine TR: Standard (70 x 6 = 420)
Manoeuvre TR: Standard (70 x 6 = 420)
Crew: 2 (4 x 2 = 8)
Passengers: 4 - 8 (8 x 4 = 32)
Cargo Hold: 50 tonnes (50)
Weapons: 1 dorsal twin-laser cannon turret (2)
Open Space: (8)
Hyperspace: (3)
Sickbay: (1)
Streamlined: Yes
Stealth: No
Total Modules = 116
Speed: 420 / 116 = 3.6 (round up to 4)
Handling: 420 / 116 = 3.6 (round up to 4)
SIZ: 116
Hit Points: 116
Shields: 7
Recovery: 0
Armour: 3

 

The cargo capacity of the Falcon (from Wookieepedia and the Star Wars d20 rules) is listed as 100 metric tons, so I scaled this down a bit. Even with this reduction, it still gives the SIZ/HP as 116 and this didn't seem right to me.

 

To save on modules, I house-ruled that 1 cargo module = 10 metric tons. Have I gone completely off-target?

 

Regards,

Colin Brett

 

[clarence]

I haven't tried building any Star Wars ships with the rules so I'm not sure how they hold up in that context. From the top of my head I would say that generally, at least engines and hyperspace takes up less room in the SW universe than in my rules. And from the little I know about Millennium Falcon 100 metric tons (approximately 100 cars) seems like a lot for a ship of that size, and I can't remember thinking of it as a "cockpit attached to a cargo hold". So house-ruling 1 cargo module = 10 metric tons seems like a good solution to better fit SW. That would give you a size of 116-45=71 right? That seems more in line with the far trader sizes I have been using (though with less cargo capacity).

 

Do the Millennium Falcon have cubicles for their passengers? If it doesn't, I would use 8 modules instead of 32. Oh, and I would add 2-4 modules for a cockpit.

 

It could of course be that I have gravely underestimated the amount of cargo a ship can squeeze in. I will have to check that. The default assumption is that 1 module equals 1 person (and everything needed to survive in space) and for a bare-bones cargo hold it seems about right to me that a metric ton could fit into the same space, but I will double-check my calculations.

 

Good to see the rules getting used and thanks for pointing out this discrepancy. Are you building any other Star Wars ships?

[Montjoy]

a ton of the spec problems that come from the Falcon data is that they switched models.

Originally it was much more like the blockade runner we see the princess on at the beginning of the movie.

For these reasons the inside of the ship quite literally doesn't fit inside the ship.

 

 

Here is a link if you are interested. Go to the Behind the scenes section.

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Millennium_Falcon

 

 

(edited to add link)

[clarence]

Here's a quote from Wookieepedia that may explain the discrepancy (just as Montjoy suggests):

 

Like many science fiction spacecraft, the Falcon's interior sets cannot actually physically fit within the exterior sets. Subsequent Expanded Universe plans are consequently a compromise attempt at squeezing the interiors in (often with detriment to headroom). These compromise plans often also result in the Falcon having rather small engines for a ship considered notable for its speed.

[colinabrett]

 

...

Do the Millennium Falcon have cubicles for their passengers? If it doesn't, I would use 8 modules instead of 32. Oh, and I would add 2-4 modules for a cockpit.

...

Good to see the rules getting used and thanks for pointing out this discrepancy. Are you building any other Star Wars ships?

 

Hi Clarence,

 

I wouldn't call my findings a "discrepancy" with your rules. As mentioned by Montjoy and yourself, any oddities come from the retconned source material I'm using .

 

I don't know if the Falcon has passenger cabins. I seem to remember one of the Han Solo novels describing Han lounging around on his bunk and using a very small closet but I can't find the reference yet.

 

I am working on the TIE fighter and Lambda-class shuttles using stats from Wookieepedia and the SW d20 rules. I'll post these as soon as I can.

 

Regards,

Colin

[clarence]

Ok, discrepancy might not be the best word. In Swedish we use it simply as "unsimilar" : ) Anyway, it's good to know that porting ships is not necessarily a straightforward procedure. Looking forward to the TIEs and shuttles.

 

I just want to offer my congrats and well wishes for you guys and your project. This is seriously looking good and that print job by Lulu...very nice.

 

Thank you Sunwolfe. I very much appreciate your support. In fact, without the support from the forum members here I doubt there would be a book. And the talent ratio of BRP Central is impressive.

[colinabrett]

Hi,

 

As mentioned previously, here is the first of the Star Wars ships I've been working on. It's a bit long-winded but I hope it shows some of my reasoning and maths.

 

Name: TIE Fighter
Class: Star Fighter
Engine TR: Standard (70 x 2 = 140)
Manoeuvre TR: Standard (70 x 1 = 70)
Crew: 1 (1 module)
Passengers: None
Cargo Hold: None (can carry personal/survival gear)
Weapons: 2 forward laser cannon (2)
Open Space: None
Hyperspace: None
Sickbay: None
Streamlined: Yes (1200 km/h)
Stealth: No
Total Modules: 5
Speed: 140 / 5 = 28
Handling: 70 / 5 = 14
Size: 5
Hit Points: 5
Shields: None
Recovery: None
Armour: 2
 

Wookieepedia states that the TIE fighter was "manufactured en masse", so maybe the Empire went for "quantity, not quality". As it's a twin-ion engine fighter, I went for two, standard engines, and its lack of equipment beyond the essentials means it is fast and manoueverable. The fact that it has 5 Hit Points, no shields and thin armour explains why the quad-guns on the Millennium Falcon could blow the TIEs to smithereens.

 

What do you think?

 

Colin

[colinabrett]

As a further update, here is the X-Wing fighter:

 

X-Wing Fighter
Class: Star Fighter
Engine TR: Standard (70 x 4 = 280)
Manoeuvre TR: Standard (70 x 1 = 70)
Crew: 1 (1 module)
Passengers: 1 Astromech droid (1 module)
Cargo Hold: None (can carry personal/survival gear)
Weapons: 4 wing mounted laser cannon (4 modules), 2 proton torpedoes (2 modules)
Open Space: None
Hyperspace: 1
Sickbay: None
Streamlined: Yes (1050 km/h)
Stealth: No
Total Modules: 14
Speed: 280 / 14 = 20
Handling: 70 / 14 = 5
Size: 14
Hit Points: 14
Shields: 1
Recovery: None
Armour: 2
 

These ships have four engines and four laser cannons, plainly visible in the movies. Also, in Episode IV, the pilots are told to "switch on your deflectors double-front" to get through the Death Star's fields, so I've given it a shields rating of 1. And the ships are clearly capable of lightspeed because Luke flies from Hoth to Dagobah without dying of old age in the process .

 

Any thoughts on this?

 

Regards,

Colin

[clarence]

It looks good! If I can make one suggestion it would be to make them more similar in size. The easiest way to do that is probably to not use one module per engine and instead increase the quality of the engine if necessary to reach such high speeds. It makes the design process more flexible I think. The cannons can also do double damage (by using the rules in the chapter on advanced starship combat) and reduce them to 2 modules instead.

 

I think a higher value for the X-wing's shields would be good too, perhaps ditching the armor altogether (they seem very vulnerable once the shields are gone).

 

Here's how I would do it:

 

 

X-WING

 

Cockpit: 1

Passenger: 1 (Astromech Droid)

Weapons: 2 (Laser, damage upgrade to 2d6 each)

Engine (TR80): 2

Maneuver (TR70): 2

Cargo: None (can carry personal/survival gear)

Hyperspace: 1 (no module)

Shields: 10

Armor: -

Apps: Targeting +15%

 

SPEED 20

HANDLING 17

SIZE 8

 

 

I cheated a bit by not including the torpedoes (though adding one module containing two torpedoes would work fine too) and not adding a module for hyperspace (in Star Wars hyperspace devices seems to be very small).

 

What do you think? Would this work for you?

[colinabrett]

Hi Clarence,

 

Your revisions look good. Thanks. I'll definitely be borrowing them for my game.

 

Also, as I mentioned up-thread, here are the stats for the Lambda-class shuttle (like the Tydirium used by the Rebels to land on Endor in Episode VI). The version below uses your original 1 module = 1 tonne of cargo space.

 

Lambda-class Shuttle (cr version)

Class: Military/Government Shuttle
Engine TR: Cutting Edge (120 x 5 = 600)
Manoeuvre TR: Excellent (100 x 3 = 300)
Crew: 6 x 4 = 24 modules
Passengers: 20 x 4 = 80 modules, or
Cargo Hold: 80 tonnes (80 modules), or
VIP Staterooms: 8 passengers x 16 luxury cabin modules = 128
Weapons: Twin forward laser cannon (2), two twin wing laser cannon (4), one rear twin blaster cannon (2)
Open Space: 10
Hyperspace: 2
Sickbay: 1
Streamlined: Yes
Stealth: Optional
Total Modules: Basic 51, Passenger 131, Cargo 131, VIP 179
Speed: Basic (600 / 51 =) 11, Passenger (600 / 131 =) 5, Cargo (600 / 131 =) 5, VIP (600 / 179 =) 4
Handling: Basic (300 / 51 =) 6, Passenger (300 / 131 =) 2, Cargo (300 / 131 =) 2, VIP (300 / 179 =) 2
Size: 9 (based on Passenger/Cargo modules of 131)
Hit Points: 9 (+ 9 extra) = 18
Shields: 10
Recovery: 2
Armour: 5

 

Notes:

1) This vessel has several configurations. The Basic model is simply the hull, engines, weapons and similar necessary components. Passenger and Cargo versions are modified to carry troops, personnel or equipment. The VIP configuration is fitted with luxury staterooms (Vader and the Emperor travel in these ships, so the accommodation must be excellent).
2) Wookieepedia lists this ship as being capable of travelling across the galaxy, hence using 4 modules per crew member and passenger. For a single jump, maybe one-way jump (like that the rebels made in Return of the Jedi), one module would perhaps suffice.

3) Using my house rule of "1 module = 10 tonnes of cargo" the Cargo configuration is only 59 modules, with corresponding changes to speed etc.

 

What do you think?

 

Colin