Earlier era

[Ikirouta]

Hi,

I just printed Jihad and while the setting in itself is intriquing and all that I was wondering how well it would work in a period before jihads where noble houses were fighting each other. Could it work just as a SciFi extension of BW without "infection" mechanics? Or maybe one house is trying to conquer a fief of another noble house? In the latter case the game would benefit from Firefight rules from BE.

So, what do you think?

[Drozdal]

It all depends on a scale of the game you want to run. For intergalactic conflicts and combat heavy games Firefight seems like a good sollution, but incorporating those mechanics into Jihad would require some extensive work on the lifepaths (required skills ect).

But more important question that you need to ask yourself before you start changing and modyfing LPs and rules is: what is that you (and your players) want the game to be about. Noble houses fighting each other is a nice starting point but it's just to broad, scale it down, find what's important for you guys, focus on that thing and go for it.

[Ikirouta]

Yes, you are right that it might be just too broad to use. I suppose that if I tone it down a bit it might work. I mean maybe the conflict between noble houses is at the background and it escalets a bit like in Infection rules.

Maybe converting rules is a bit too much, ATM since I have no real experience with the system and I thought that this could be used for BE light. Me and my group would learn most of the rules first without going to Infection rules layer in BE.

[Drozdal]

Maybe converting rules is a bit too much, ATM since I have no real experience with the system and I thought that this could be used for BE light. Me and my group would learn most of the rules first without going to Infection rules layer in BE.

If that's the case I really strongly suggest running Omac (http://www.burningempires.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Omac.zip) demo scenario for them. It will give you guys opportunity to familiarize yourselves with rules and maybe soldify some concepts about what, where, why and who you want to play in your future game.

[Ikirouta]

I'll have to check it out. Thanks for pointing that one for me!

[Drozdal]

I'll have to check it out. Thanks for pointing that one for me!My pleasure.

[khelek]

For running some of the elements from BE you wil lhave to make agreements on what are good substitutions for the Skills required. BE's character burning LPs are geared to the skills required for Manuvers and Firefight, when using characters created by burinign Sands, you will have to make allowances for characrters not having these skills.

it will change the balance of power. but is do able and could be fun.

[Ikirouta]

Yes, I am aware that a straightforward conversion is not possible for the reasons you mentioned. One way might be to just leave maneuvers from the game and focus on similar games that can be played with just BW. With that I mean to games that are on a lower scale.

Still something have to be done to get the proper skills for Firefight as those rules could come handy in mass fights.