Topic: Any reports from playtests?

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Anyone have any reports of how HARP SF has worked in actual play?

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[chk]

Alas, we've only been able to get together once.

Character generation went smoothly for us, although for our simple scenario we skipped over talents due to time constraints.

Civilian combat is extremely deadly, even at first level. We had a simple "cops and robbers" scenario with the characters shooting at each other while hiding behind stopped cars, and even with the partial cover offered by the cars, almost everyone was down in a couple of rounds .

We have plans to play with a ground car chase scene (the prequel to the firefight above), but I don't know when we'll be able to get together again; there's a big wedding coming up!

[Mungo]

Hi,

My campaign will start somewhere in May, as we GMs are taking turns.

So unfortunately no playtest yet.

BR
Juergen

[mystic]

We have a group playing - we are all novices with HARP though so we are keeping things simple. I have already touched on some of the items that we ran into with the game. Our approach has been more of read only the sections that we need to get the game started than a word by word or page by page approach. Summary thus far:

Hits! - Yep it was pointed out in the forums where it was mentioned we can find them but we still missed them. Mentioning how they are derived in the character creation summary, a glossary or as a link in an index would be nice.

Opponents - There were none. This one was a shocker when starting an scenario.

Combat - Well you can check out the "Combat Questions" in the forum section. I know you have seen the post there. I agree with "chk" that it is pretty deadly. Still getting the hang of it though. It seems kind of difficult to miss a target if no one is wearing armor or someone did not fumble.

Cultures and Adolescent skills - I liked that section it helped flesh out some of the background for the characters and fit with the characters we do have in the group.

Have not done anything with Vehicles. I kind of hesitant to try anything at this point as it would have to be ship to ship engagement and I would hate to blow up the group at this point in the game.

Anything specific you would like a report on?

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Opponents - There were none. This one was a shocker when starting an scenario.

A Master NPC table may well appear but everything else character related needs to be stable first.

Combat - Well you can check out the "Combat Questions" in the forum section. I know you have seen the post there. I agree with "chk" that it is pretty deadly. Still getting the hang of it though. It seems kind of difficult to miss a target if no one is wearing armor or someone did not fumble.

Agile Defense, Instinctive Defense, can boost DB. Cover is very important, make sure range penalties are applied, use Combat Actions such as Dodging Fire, Minimize Exposure, and Combat Crawl.

HARP Fantasy characters without armor have it somewhat easier - if they can get to melee range, they can transfer OB to DB through parrying and that can make all the difference.

Anything specific you would like a report on?

I've no specific requests - this is more a request for news on how things are working out in play, odd things you've found, odd things you can't find in the rules (but you need them), and so forth.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[allenrmaher]

Combat - Well you can check out the "Combat Questions" in the forum section. I know you have seen the post there. I agree with "chk" that it is pretty deadly. Still getting the hang of it though. It seems kind of difficult to miss a target if no one is wearing armor or someone did not fumble.

I like this part, it plays like a fire fight, where everyone dives for cover.

[chk]

Just to be clear; I wasn't *complaining* that combat was deadly. I like deadly combat; it forces characters to apply alternate solutions... :-)

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Just to be clear; I wasn't *complaining* that combat was deadly. I like deadly combat; it forces characters to apply alternate solutions... :-)

I was merely pointing out to mystic that it should be possible to up DB significantly without resorting to combat armor.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[pork]

After the first short session i recognized the following:

Cyberware
The Cyberware could be better balanced (the prices and efforts):
The Aditional Options  (S.183) are very expensive (eg Cyberarm -Agile Arm +15  normal cost 15000 credits; with aditional option:  DB: +3 Cost: x15 you have a total cost of 225000 credits). For this amount of Money you can by more usefull Cyberware.

Vehicle Combat
The Vehicles could have more hits with like a small helicopter only has 5 hits it is very easy with a small weapon like a pistol to destroy it with a single shot.
And even a Starfighter with 70 hits is not much...

Ship Combat
Nice that there is a task for all Characters. I really like this!

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

After the first short session i recognized the following:

Cyberware
The Cyberware could be better balanced (the prices and efforts):
The Aditional Options  (S.183) are very expensive (eg Cyberarm -Agile Arm +15  normal cost 15000 credits; with aditional option:  DB: +3 Cost: x15 you have a total cost of 225000 credits). For this amount of Money you can by more usefull Cyberware.

I should have used a clearer example in the text.

A +15 Agile Arm with DB +3  is costed as follows:
Base unit: Cyberarm 5000 credits x15 for +3 DB = 75,000
              Agile Arm: 1000 per +1 = 15000
Total price: 90,000 credits

Cyberarm with just Agile Arm = 5000 + 15000 = 20,000 credits

The cost multipliers for DB and RRs versus EMP attacks are those used elsewhere in the book for other equipment, e.g. a +15 pistol costs x15. Now they may be too high, but if they go too low, we'll have game balance issues, particularly since it is harder to control money flow in sf games.

Vehicle Combat
The Vehicles could have more hits with like a small helicopter only has 5 hits it is very easy with a small weapon like a pistol to destroy it with a single shot.
And even a Starfighter with 70 hits is not much...

There is some wriggle room for increasing the lower end of the spectrum. At the top end, it is undesirable for small spacecraft to end up with hundreds or thousands of hits as space battles will go on until someone gets lucky on the critical table, however. I'll look into it.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Vehicle Combat
The Vehicles could have more hits with like a small helicopter only has 5 hits it is very easy with a small weapon like a pistol to destroy it with a single shot.
And even a Starfighter with 70 hits is not much...

There is some wriggle room for increasing the lower end of the spectrum. At the top end, it is undesirable for small spacecraft to end up with hundreds or thousands of hits as space battles will go on until someone gets lucky on the critical table, however. I'll look into it.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

I looked into it. I've upped the structural hits across the board, and I've made the size modifiers more severe, etc. The relevant pages of manuscript are now available from the Downloads link for registered HARP SF beta testers. I'd appreciate playtesting on this.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Mungo]

Hi,

Had my first HARP SF session yesterday, my players play a Dilletante (who is a blend of Soldier and Scientist), a Fusion:Spy, a Pilot (who wants to become Tech later on) and an Entertainer (a professional Gambler to be more precise).

The scenario was that they woke up in a hospital and found out that 7 years have passed since their last memory (and they have never seen each other before). They are on a backwater planet and their spaceship was accidentally shot down 2 days ago. For some reason several groups demand delivery of their cargo....

My comments so far (session was not rule intensive, more roleplaying):

- Depending on your profession, the DPs you have to spend are tight or not. Especially Engineers, Scientists and Pilots have it difficult, while a Soldier, Spy or Entertainer faces a more relaxed situation.
-  The Fusion:Spy can practically not afford more than one PSI Field (the one he starts with). Extrapolation tells me that an Adept should not go beyond 2, at least when he has hopes of reaching higher tiers.
- I substituted on many occasions the skill to use something with the relevant Lore skill. E.g. the character with Medical Practice could identify the machines in their room, the character with Engineering: Magnetogravitic could try to find out whether their Space ship could crash the way it was described by the witnesses -> I think this is a good concept, perhaps mention it also in the manuscript (if not already there), as it menas you do not have to have tons of Lore ranks and can focus on your profession.
- During character creation we really missed further clarifications on the Piloting Skills and Machine Operation (i.e. which subcategories are there, as with Engineering).
- One of my players did a Excel based character sheet. Its quite nice, but you still have to check it - and the buttons are in German. I can send it to anyone who is interested (and I will send all characters to Nicholas, perhaps he can reuse them for his NPC table...).
- The basic rule mechanics from HARP again proved to be rock solid (RRs, ...).

Will keep you updated as the campaign progresses.

BR
Juergen

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

I'll cut and paste the relevant skills (vehicle, machine op, signaling, etc) into a doc and put it on the Downloads section while we wait on Tim completing another pass. Allen has a new version of the spreadsheet that incorporates almost all the latest changes that could go up too.

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Mungo]

Thanks a lot. And could you also post the updated Starfighter Pilot TP? The pilot has taken it and I didn't know how many ranks in Combat Pilot he received from that.

BR
Juergen

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Thanks a lot. And could you also post the updated Starfighter Pilot TP? The pilot has taken it and I didn't know how many ranks in Combat Pilot he received from that.

BR
Juergen

Not worth putting up another pdf for this list:

Starfighter Pilot:
Combat Style & Maneuver: Combat Piloting   2
Gunnery   2
Navigation   3
Signaling   2
Space Pilot   3
Vocation: Crewmember   2
Weapon Skill   2
Zero-G Maneuvering   3

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Mungo]

Hi,

Had another session today (but a short one) and the only issue we stumbled upon was:

Why is communicating via radio under Machine Operation and not under Signaling?

My players were confused...

BR
Juergen

[Lord Damian]

Hi,

Had another session today (but a short one) and the only issue we stumbled upon was:

Why is communicating via radio under Machine Operation and not under Signaling?

My players were confused...

BR
Juergen

Offhand i'd say because signaling involved communicating via codes, such as morse or semaphore, whre as simple radio (vocal) communication is just knowing what buttons to push to send or recieve (more or less)

Lord damian

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

Use either Machine Operation or Signaling. Basic radio operation is just pushing buttons so Machine Operation is good enough. Using codes really requires Signaling (but the basics operation of the kit is also within the Signaling skill.)

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[Mungo]

Hi,

I thought both skills have been spilt into several skills (like Engineering). With Machine Operations there is one skill dedicated explicitely to communicating via radio, while with Signaling there is none...

So does that mean using a radio is so basic that I can use any Signaling skill or am I misunderstanding something?

BR
Juergen

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

I thought both skills have been spilt into several skills (like Engineering). With Machine Operations there is one skill dedicated explicitely to communicating via radio, while with Signaling there is none...

More precisely, there is a Machine Operation skill that covers all types of communicators, not just radios.

So does that mean using a radio is so basic that I can use any Signaling skill or am I misunderstanding something?

There's room for overlap with the Signaling: Sensors and Countermeasures skill basically. If a character has that one, then I'm not going to demand that they must have Machine Operation: Communicators as well to use a radio. I might well throw penalties at characters who try to do clever non-signaling related matters with a radio if they only have Signaling skill though. Or let them do it once and then gently suggest that they have now learned enough that they really ought to buy a skill rank in the relevant Machine Operation skill.

I'm coming from the viewpoint that subdividing skills into ever-finer slivers (e.g. the perception and herb skill disasters of RMSS) is something that we should aim to avoid, where possible.