MSPE Setting: Reliquary Space.

[gaptooth]

[Was "Ghost Echo Space"]

By fits and starts, humans finally developed light speed travel and took to the stars. But everywhere they went, they found only vast emptiness. They established colonies on other worlds. Then they found the remains: Primordial ruins left by impossibly ancient alien civilizations, scars in the crust of planets like our own. Hulking derelict space vessels floating silently, their life support systems disabled in ancient eons, their crews reduced to films of lifeless carbon residue.

Despite their loneliness amid the stars, humans forged a sprawling and fractious galactic empire. Novel arts and sciences sprang into being, while disconnected colonies lapsed into varieties of barbarism. Fleets of star ships enforced factional interests in crucial trade corridors, and the houses of baroque imperial power played long strategic games of intrigue for dominance.

Scattered across the galaxy, a generation of psions was born. The noble houses seek these gifted ones to train them and use them as weapons against each other.

You are a mercenary, a spy, a psion, a titled noble, a scientist, a rogue, or some other pawn in a bleak and byzantine space opera. But even a pawn may become a queen when it reaches the other side.

Touchstones:
Dune
Alien
Caprica
Lovecraft
Star Wars (without aliens)
Weird Tales

---

Yes, I watched the new Dune movie. And now I'm itching to run a game in a similar setting. My first thought was to use the psionics rules from GURPS 3rd edition, which I never got to really play with in the GURPS campaigns of my youth. But after poring over the ancient texts and pondering the situation, I plan to use MSPE instead, using the 2019 Combined Edition text as a basis, and importing some of the psionics rules from GURPS as supplemental material.

I plan to post more about the setting and possible house rules here, as way opens. But I welcome any ideas, feedback, or other thoughts you all have!

Cheers!

[cupboardgnome]

Just do it!

[zanshin]

It sounds awesome.

[cupboardgnome]

A future TZ article?

[gaptooth]

I'm working on weaving the psi rules together now, but I'm ready to declare my first 2 house rules:

1. Skills in character creation: You get what you get from your Skill Points. Tell me your backstory after you make your character. This amends the option described on pp17–18 to get extra skills without spending Skill Points or meeting IQ requirements if you spin an entertaining yarn for the GM.

My reason for this is to simplify character creation for both the GM and player.

2. Advancement: Strike out character level. 0-5 (or so) AP will be awarded at the end of each session loosely according to the criteria defined in the advancement chapter. You also get 1 AP times the level of the Saving Roll when you miss a Saving Roll. These can be spent to improve attributes or skills per the formula for buying additional skill levels on p20. The only way to get new skills is to increase IQ (and possibly through Skill Specialization as described on p124—I haven't decided yet).

So, instead of tracking thousands of AP for your character and individual skills, you simply spend double a skill's current level to increase it by one point (quadruple the current value for 2-point skills; or 6 times the current value for 3-point skills). The same goes for attribute scores, which count as 2-point skills. Raising Sleight of Hand (a 1-point skill) from 2 to 3 costs 4 AP. Raising your IQ from 16 to 17 costs 64 AP.

My reason is to simplify bookkeeping, and use smaller numbers. Since character level doesn't seem to have any impact on the game, I don't feel bad losing it.

This would require an amendment to Knighthood and Lordship Titles, which have specific character levels as prerequisites and require Saving Rolls at the character's current level to attain. I'm not sure yet how to reconcile this, but I'll give it further thought.

[gaptooth]

After thinking about it, I realized that the level requirement built in to Knighthood and Lordship could be dispensed with without changing much at all. Instead of depending on your character's level number AND a Saving Roll at that level, we could simply require a Saving Roll at the designated level.

Knighthood - 1 pt.
The character must make a level 3 Charisma Saving Roll to receive the title. Until then, they are a squire—a knight in training. You may attempt the Saving Roll once before play if you invest the skill point when creating your character. If you fail, you may attempt it again when you have downtime to present yourself before your lord after an adventure. Add 1 point to your Saving Roll for each major knightly deed you have accomplished that brings renown to your lord.

Lordship - 2 pts. (Requires Knighthood)
The character must make a level 6 Saving Roll on the average of Charisma and Intelligence to receive this title. You may attempt the Saving Roll once before play if you invest the skill points when creating your character. If you fail, you may attempt it again when you have downtime to present yourself before your lord sovereign after an adventure. Add 1 point to your Saving Roll for each major lordly deed you have accomplished that brings renown to your realm.

[gaptooth]

I've done a lot of tinkering with MSPE's psionics rules to integrate powers from GURPS Basic Set, 3rd edition.

One thing I want to keep is MSPE's opportunity for untrained psionic power!

Psionics
Each psionic skill costs 3 skill points and may be latent or mastered. To check for mastery make a Level 2 Saving Roll for each skill, combining your IQ with your level in the chosen skill.

Latent skill: The GM uses the skill erratically as though it were controlled by an unreliable but benevolent NPC. Such powers may manifest in stressful situations or otherwise, at the GM's whim. If you spend significant downtime training under a master of a given discipline, you may check for mastery again at the end of your training regime, taking a +1 bonus for each fortnight of unbroken, focused practice in a single skill.

---

The Saving Roll here is identical to the latency check rule in MSPE, I just wanted to describe it in terms of the familiar Saving Roll mechanic; I also wanted to allow the possibility of players buying multiple levels in a given skill.

The "trained by a master" scenario offers the opportunity for situations like Luke going to Dagobah to get better, turning a character's deficit into an adventure opportunity.

[ProfGremlin]

I'm following all this with interest, gaptooth . I've been toying around with the idea of running a retrofuture/steampunk version of MSPE set in early 1900s San Francisco with a healthy dose of Special Unit 2 / Warehouse 13 thrown in along with the possibility of Golden Age superheroes like The Shadow or The Phantom, maybe some thingy Tracy or Starman.  With what you're putting together here, the possibility looks really enticing.

[gaptooth]

Thank you, ProfGremlin!

If anyone is interested, I just posted my Quick Character Generation rundown here.

Besides posting my take on psionics, I'd also like to create a few lists of useful skills for different roles in a spacecraft crew, etc.

[cupboardgnome]

Nov 19, 2021 12:28:14 GMT -5 gaptooth said:

Thank you, ProfGremlin!

If anyone is interested, I just posted my Quick Character Generation rundown here.

Besides posting my take on psionics, I'd also like to create a few lists of useful skills for different roles in a spacecraft crew, etc.

. Looking good.

[gaptooth]

Nov 19, 2021 13:33:50 GMT -5 cupboardgnome said:

Nov 19, 2021 12:28:14 GMT -5 gaptooth said:

Looking good.

Thank you, cupboardgnome! I just added an example of Boomer character creation at the same link.

[cupboardgnome]

Reading it now...

[gaptooth]

I just had an Idea. Can anyone here talk me out of it?

I was writing up my blog post about psionic gifts, and it occurred to me that the old school Greek word for spiritual gifts is χάρισμα—Charisma. What if players got Skill Points based on IQ for their regular skills, and Skill Points equal to their Charisma for psionic gifts?

That would give starting characters roughly double points for skills, and make psionic powers a almost universal—at least for player characters.

I guess making psionics universal is the opposite of what I want in this game. Woo! I talked myself out of it. But if anyone else wants to steal the idea, have at it!

[order99]

Nov 18, 2021 19:51:08 GMT -5 ProfGremlin said:

I'm following all this with interest, gaptooth . I've been toying around with the idea of running a retrofuture/steampunk version of MSPE set in early 1900s San Francisco with a healthy dose of Special Unit 2 / Warehouse 13 thrown in along with the possibility of Golden Age superheroes like The Shadow or The Phantom, maybe some thingy Tracy or Starman.  With what you're putting together here, the possibility looks really enticing.

Not to divert the Thread or anything, ProfGremlin, but:

hideoutsnhoodlums.proboards.com/board/28/steampunk-superpulp

It's a very intermittent game my increasingly unstable Group is playing every Blue Moon or so (conflicting work schedules) but despite the differing systems you should be able to find/steal some inspiration for your own brand of Madness...

[zanshin]

Nov 19, 2021 17:16:35 GMT -5 gaptooth said:

I just had an Idea. Can anyone here talk me out of it?

I was writing up my blog post about psionic gifts, and it occurred to me that the old school Greek word for spiritual gifts is χάρισμα—Charisma. What if players got Skill Points based on IQ for their regular skills, and Skill Points equal to their Charisma for psionic gifts?

That would give starting characters roughly double points for skills, and make psionic powers a almost universal—at least for player characters.

I guess making psionics universal is the opposite of what I want in this game. Woo! I talked myself out of it. But if anyone else wants to steal the idea, have at it!

I do like Charisma as spell fuel and capability. Not sure how to resolve the conundrum of universality without going down a T&T 'types' route.

Maybe if you are psi gifted, you buy psi skills with charisma, but the cost of non psi skills with Int is doubled? (The psi powers consume so much of your emotional energy to control that concentrating on mundane matters is more difficult).