Rules - 5th edition Hero System

Everyman skills will be-
Acting, Climbing, Computer Programming, Concealment, Conversation, Deduction, Native Tongue (4pts + literacy), Paramedics, Persuasion, one Professional Skill at 11-, Shadowin, Stealth, Transport Familiarity-one scifi vehicle, Area Knowledge-Home region or country

I've only one rulebook of this, and I'm a firm believer that players shouldn't be forced to learn rules to play games. I have put the 4th edition up on the main page for the sake of interest. I would prefer players to work on character personality, background and history rather than statistics and rules.

That being said, the way character generation will likely work to keep things balanced (assuming you guys want balance - I'm not fussed)- 50 points plus one or more 'archtypes' - each of which is a particular sterotypical specialisation attached to one or more typical disadvantages. Also planning on using “Heroes for tommorow” random scifi character background generator for folks willing to put their characters in the hands of the dice

In the archetypes - I mentioned Cyborg. There should also be Biocyborg and Thaumocyborg. For biological and magical replaced parts of people.

I've mentioned Androids and Golems. The biological equivalent is Replicants (ala Bladerunner).

FTL travel is a mixture of B5/trek/starwars. Tech is high tech - but no nanotech. Earth is decadent (close to Cyberpunk) but is not the seat of government for the royal family. Cloning, cyberwear, aliens, AIs, androids, psionics/magic. No resurrection - although full healing of a dead body will create a character with the same personality/memories - it won't be the same person. Although there may be magical means, possibly. No teleporting - it's too close to disintegration which leads to the same problems as resurrection. Besides there's an added level of tension if you need to use shuttles to get around There can be things close to teleporting, however - gateways and wormholes.. More than one empire, definately - and some of the alien ones have higher tech.

Magic and tech don't mix - this will be a rule.

I was thinking of 'borrowing' more things from Spacemaster, and throwing in other genre stuff as well - including the Gap series.

This basically means there are three branches of technology - Hard, Soft (or Bio) and Mana (or Magic). I kinda like the word Mana - used often in rpgs for 'magical points'. It actually comes from the bible. The bit where Moses is leading his people back, and they run out of food - so he prays for more and they get 'Mana from heaven'.. The word actually means 'I don't know' or 'unknown'. What is this? Mana.

Also - Hybridisations of the three branches can happen - but it's damn tricky and prone to side effects.

There will be many empires out there in the galaxy - but I don't expect you guys to come across them - especially if we limit the plots to the game to just a few planets. But leading examples of the tech branches would be - The Terran Empire, The Sidhe (yes, Elves in space), and The Amnioni.

Lesser examples would be other alien empires, including hybrid tech races that developed the Alien in that series of movies.

BE: I realised last night how I was envisioning the universe for your game. Fifth Element. Lots of style, lots of media, lots of high society, but underneath, there's actually fairly normal politics and bureaucracy going on to keep it all running.

Anyhow, if you have ideas for characters or settings/things - let me know. I'm happy to throw anything in as long as it's okay with other people.

I would like the first adventure to be set on Earth - because I've got cyberpunk stuff I can modify, but we could have the first adventure be some thing to do with how you guys get together. If you have ideas on that - let me know.