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Fractured Hopes

A BASIC ROLEPLAYING SPACE FANTASY

by Charles Green art by Alberto Bontempi & David FramptonSa

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2 Introduction

F r a c t u r e d H o p e s

FRACTURED HOPES is published by Chaosium Inc.

FRACTURED HOPES © 2009 Chaosium Inc. as a whole; all rights reserved. Text for FRACTURED HOPES is © 2009 by Charles Green.

“Chaosium Inc.” and “Call of Cthulhu” are registered trademarks of Chaosium Inc. Similarities between characters in FRACTURED HOPES and persons living or dead are strictly coincidental.

Address questions and comments by mail to Chaosium Inc., 22568 Mission Blvd. #423, Hayward, CA 94541-5116 U.S.A.

Our web site www.chaosium.com always contains the latest release information and current prices.

Chaosium publication 0384 ISBN-10: 1-56882-320-7

ISBN-13: 978-1-56882-320-1 Published in October 2009. Printed in the United States.

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3Fractured Hopes

F r a c t u r e d H o p e s

Chapter 1-Introduction

The book you hold in your hands is an artifact. Not in the sense that it is something ancient, found in the ground and dug up, nor is it imbued with cosmic power. It is an artifact in the sense that it is a set of tools, and the use of these tools can produce some very interesting experiences. But, in order to get a good idea of what these tools can do, it’s probably best to get to an understanding of what they are first.

Fractured Hopes is many things, but the most straightforward way of describing it is “a Basic Roleplaying Kitchen-Sink Space Fantasy game.” However, each of these terms is loaded, and we’ll need to unpack the terms themselves to determine what they mean in this context.

Firstly, it’s a game, in that the goal of its use is to be fun. It’s also a roleplaying game, a term which has its own history and meanings. As a particular sort of game, a roleplaying game (RPG for short) says that the fun derived from the game is achieved through a particular set of actions, car-ried out by a group of people operating in concert. If you are an old hand at roleplaying games, you know what I’m talking about here. However, if this is a new thing for you, you might have a look at “What is Roleplaying” further down to get some insight as to what this delightful hobby is all about. But, in the short form, this is a game, and you’re meant to have fun.

The term “Space Fantasy” has a whole bunch of associations packed with it, and a full un-packing would take more than I have space here to discuss. In brief, space fantasy is a blending of traditional fantasy elements with tropes borrowed from science fiction. Where good science fiction looks at the effects on the human condition that technological changes might bring about, space fantasy is much more concerned with the flashier parts of science fiction (such as force fields, rayguns or starships, for example). What technology that exists isn’t based on “real” science, nor is science seen as the only way to solve problems. Mostly, technology exists to allow characters to do cool stuff.

Which leads me to the next term: “Kitchen-Sink.” In its longer form, this phrase is, “includes everything but the kitchen sink,” which is a way of saying, “includes everything you can think of, and then some.” In RPG terms, this means that gun-slinging desperadoes can rub shoulders with ancient wizards, and then go on a quest to stop the Monkey King from resurrecting an army of atomic-powered killer robots. It is a style of game that says, “anything goes; the only rules are the ones we choose for ourselves.”

The “Kitchen-Sink” approach is helped by the last term that we’ll be discussing: “Basic Role-playing.” This is the system that powers Fractured Hopes, and is a good match for the setting. With it, the players and the Gamemaster should be able to accommodate nearly every idea for an interesting character, within a few limits. Someone in the group will need to own a copy of this game, and have

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4 Introduction

F r a c t u r e d H o p e sa decent working knowledge of the system. This person is usually the Gamemaster, although this isn’t mandatory.

Therefore, the tools mentioned earlier are Fractured Hope’s definitions. This is an open-ended game, which places only a few limits on the types of characters that can be created, operating in a world that is familiar enough to be comfortable, but fantastic enough to come bundled with strange creatures and a sense of wonder. Sound like fun? Just wait.

Using This BookThe Fractured Hopes book is divided into Chap-ters, roughly following the chapter order in the Basic Roleplaying Book. Each chapter will dis-cuss the relevant section of Fractured Hopes, its people, places, and cultures that developed af-ter a terrible cataclysm that threatens to doom the human species. These chapters are:

Chapter 1-The Introduction. This is 1. where we are now. This is a brief rundown of the book, and an orientation to the set-ting, which we’ll get to a bit later.

Chapter 2-Characters. Discusses what 2. sort of people the players will portray dur-ing their time as characters in this setting. This chapter will illustrate the wide variety of options for potential characters, as well as how surviving humanity will view cer-tain characters.

Chapter 3-Skills. Some of the skills 3. from the Basic book have slightly differ-ent applications in this setting. These skills will be covered here.

Chapter 4-Powers. Covers the mech-4. anisms by which characters are differenti-ated from common people. While no new

power systems are introduced in Frac-tured Hopes, the existing ones are tweaked slightly to have the setting more readily ac-commodate them. Regardless of the power system you wish your character to use (or even if you don’t want powers), there is room for it in Fractured Hopes.

Chapter 5-Spot Rules. One of the in-5. teresting facets of the Basic game is that there are a number of “dials and switches,” which is to say modular rule systems that can be manipulated to change the way the game plays. Chapter 5 will discuss the “de-fault” settings, both why they were chosen, and how changing them will affect the game.

Chapter 6-Voidships. Deals with sor-6. cerous vehicles used to travel the remains of the world. There will be rules for de-signing new ships, improving old ones, and using these ships in combat.

Chapter 7-Post-Sundering Earth. This 7. chapter includes the Fragment Generation System, a means by which the Gamemas-ter can design interesting new fragments. This will also have a list of prominent peo-ple and locations.

Chapter 8-Gamemastering 8. Fractured Hopes. Includes what the setting repre-sents, how to use it, interesting things to do and say in game.

Chapter 9-Equipment. Covers the 9. items in the game, including relics from Earth before the war, strange biotech con-structs, and other advanced technologies.

Chapter 10-Creatures. An overview 10. of how to integrate creatures from the BRP rulebook into the game. This chapter will also have a discussion on RELFs (Rapidly Evolving Life Forms), and other creatures that can be found in the setting.

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5Introduction

F r a c t u r e d H o p e sChapter 11-Putting the Pieces To-11.

gether. An introductory adventure that incorporates character creation as a part of play, not a minigame that happens be-forehand.

What is a Roleplaying Game?

This question has many possible answers, de-pending on who you ask and what their par-ticular approach to roleplaying is. If you’re new to roleplaying, it might be easiest to think of the hobby as a social storytelling game, where one of the people in the group (usually called the Gamemaster, or GM for short) establishes situations, and the rest of the group describe how their characters respond to that situation. The GM will talk with the players to determine how their characters work within the situation, and move through the possibilities that come from their choices. When that one situation is resolved, another one is introduced, and play continues in this way until a satisfying conclu-sion has been reached. The fun of being in a game comes from developing novel solutions to complex problems, and seeing how these so-lutions play out.

For me, though, there is a deeper level to roleplaying, one that doesn’t get mentioned very often. With the right group of people, at the right time in the game, it is possible for the process of being in a game and rolling dice to resolve situations to transcend the action at the table and become something more profound. It may be the climax of a lengthy story, or a moment in the game when everyone is so im-mersed in what they’re doing that they are their characters, or even a seemingly innocuous in-teraction between two characters that produces some insight in the nature of the player’s self. Humans are social creatures, and all sort of strange, wonderful things can occur when we

engage with each other at the roleplaying table. The thing is, nobody can really plan for these instances of transcendence, and trying to force them will usually backfire in a big way.

My advice is to play the game as you nor-mally would, but keep an eye open for some-thing else, something deeper. You’ll probably know it when you see it, and those few, rare profound moments are worth all the time spent getting there. Plus, the normal parts of the game are fun too, so it’s not like you’ve wasted time if it doesn’t happen.

As far as the actual playing of the game is concerned, the items mentioned in the intro-duction to the Basic Roleplaying book stand for this text as well.

Fractured Hopes- The SettingThe default setting for Fractured Hopes is our own world, set at some point in the future. However, several events have occurred that have changed the way human beings think about life and their place in it. The “present” day of the setting is set up so that a wide variety of games could be played in it. By choosing when and where the game will be set, the Gamemaster can fit in just about any type of game. The combina-tion of the flexible Basic Roleplaying system and the open setting mean that you can play any-thing from gritty, survival horror, to epic space opera, and everything in between. Characters have a similar range, and a variety of character types can reasonably fit together as a team in order to bring about party cohesion.

There are a few constant threats written into the setting, which can provide an easy set of antagonists if needed. However, the world is an even bigger place than it is now, and some-

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