TheRPGSite

http://www.dennisantinori.com/Resources/Ringworld/

Quote from: Tetsubo;386761http://www.dennisantinori.com/Resources/Ringworld/

Fantastic. Thanks for the link.

I like how the stabilizing thrusters fire every now and again.

That is the coolest thing I've seen today!  Makes me nostalgic for the old Chaosium game...need to look on the 'ol eBay for it sometime.

I do like the fact that the continents of the different worlds are in the Great Oval Ocean.

Glad to see someone did the Map Room. :)

Slight niggle - the ring isn't exactly perpendicular, it seems to slant slightly "upward". Other than that, I'm ready to go!

It rotates around the sun every 7 days? That mother fucker is moving.

Its been years since I read the books, but i do think night falls like a hammer.

I've never read the books (and never played the Chaosium game).

Do you guys think I should read them?

1st book was frickin' awesome. 2nd book was pretty damn good. Didn't read any past that.

And the game rocks too, especially if you read/have read some of Niven's other "Known Space" stories.

I love the known space stories, and I dig the idea of the Ringworld, but I found the first book a little slow, i enjoyed the second quite a bit more.

My experience mirrors Werekoala's exactly.  I read the first book in high school as a suggested pre-requisite for playing the game with a friend who had bought it, and just fell in love with the story.  If I weren't so afraid they'd ruin it, I'd love to see a movie.

The game is old-school BRP iirc...a lot of people used to complain that it didn't include "full" rules for space travel, building ships, etc. and focused on exploration of the Ring itself.  Never bothered me...all the additional tidbits and factoids made it so awesome to me that an entire campaign there seemed perfect.  You could transplant Traveller or another ruleset if you NEEDED all the additional bits and just use the background, but I never felt that necessary.  When we played it back in high school, we ran a "marooned on the Ring" scenario anyway, so we had no real hope of leaving in the short-term.

Like Werekoala I only ever read the first two books, so ymmv with the series, but it was certainly good stuff.  

Dreampark was another one that I thought would make a great RPG. (though the setting wouldn't sustain long-term play, I don't think...)  It would probably make a fine one-off using something like Over the Edge.

Quote from: Cranewings;386813It rotates around the sun every 7 days? That mother fucker is moving.

IIRC, ringworld rotated at about 777 miles per second.

Quote from: kregmosier;386845 Dreampark was another one that I thought would make a great RPG.

Well ... it did!

(http://www.waynesbooks.com/images/graphics/dprulebook.jpg)

http://rpg.geekdo.com/rpgitem/47269/dream-park
http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_3118.html
http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_5251.html

Ringworld and The Ringworld Engineers are two of the my favorite scifi books. I re-read them every so often. The sheer scope of Niven's vision is stunning. Everytime you think you've seen it all, something else crops up to make your jaw drop. They're both such slender books, relative to the phonebook-thick books we're so used to today, that it's astounding how idea-dense they are. There are a number of ideas besides the Ringworld itself that would make for interesting books on their own, and in these they're background elements.

Niven's entire Known Space setting is full of wonder and mystery.

Yeah, Benoist, you might just want to step out at lunchtime and grab a copy of Ringworld - you'll be done by tonight depending on your workload.  Ringworld Engineers...eh...it's "okay".  I got to the third book where ... well, lets just say I didn't bother reading past the first fifty pages or so.  (PROTIP: any time you see "...A Novel By BIG NAME SCI-FI AUTHOR with SMALL TIME SCI-FI AUTHOR" especially if it's one in a series?  Avoid it at all cost, it's going to suck.

But anyway: Ringworld - yes.

Also California Dream Park as an RPG always struck me as a weird concept because ... I mean, you're role playing going to a theme park to play role playing games?  Is that it?  Weird.

Nothing to add here other than I keep reading the title of this thread as "Visualization of Larry Niven's Ringworm".. clicking on it, and then getting disappointed.

Alrighty. Guess I'll have to check it out after I finish Three Hearts and Three Lions.

I read the first book recently again. I own the second and third books, but won't read them for fear of them destroying in my mind the image I have built up of Ringworld.

I learnt my lesson with Dune wherein each new book destroyed the beauty of the first novel.

Still my question still remains what you can do with Ringworld that you couldn't possibily do with any other science fiction RPG?

The idea that an adventure written for Ringworld works only in the context of the Ringworld universe is not a new idea. I recall reading about the script writing process for the original Star Trek series where the producers would reject scripts and storylines that could be used in any other TV series or film. In other words, the Star Trek stories only work in Star Trek, and couldn't have been used in any other TV show.

I think it all comes down to system preference. It's BRP if you like BRP, and you want to have an adventure on the Ring. It's probably the right way to go.
Personally I'd probably use True 20 or Traveller. However the setting detail in the original boxed set is pretty fucking awesome iiirc.
However, a lot of what you'd really need can be found here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld). this is especially true if you want to explore a section of the ring that Niven did not (i.e. most of it).

Or really you could just make up an entirely new ring (which again is what i would do) and set it in your own SF universe.

The system isn't the problem. I adore BRP, and Ringworld proves that the system can handle science fiction extremely well.

I can run any BRP (with the minor exception of Pendragon) without the aid of a rulebook. That's not me being smart, rather BRP being simple, brilliant and effective as a RPG tool.

The one thing about the Ringworld as setting to remember - it is literally as big as trillions (billions?) of Earths. This means that, unless you're going for a straight "travel to the Ring and do x-y-z" type of adventure, you could pretty much do anything you wanted, as long as it didn't involve fossil fuels and ferrous metals. I know I've heard of the Ring being a setting for D&D, for example (though I suspect with the wierd tech it was more like Gamma World).

Quote from: Werekoala;386953The one thing about the Ringworld as setting to remember - it is literally as big as trillions (billions?) of Earths. This means that, unless you're going for a straight "travel to the Ring and do x-y-z" type of adventure, you could pretty much do anything you wanted, as long as it didn't involve fossil fuels and ferrous metals. I know I've heard of the Ring being a setting for D&D, for example (though I suspect with the wierd tech it was more like Gamma World).

Ringworld has a surface area 3 million x of earth, AIR...

Quote from: Cylonophile;386954Ringworld has a surface area 3 million x time of earth, AIR...

It's been awhile. so, if its only 3 million times Earth's surface area, then Gamma World is right out. :)

I played in a D&D campaign set on the Ring. My character had a staff made of scryth. It was a plumbing pipe. :)

The Ringworld RPG is a great resource.

Larry Niven has so far done a total of four Ringworld novels.

Ringworld (http://www.amazon.com/Ringworld-Larry-Niven/dp/0345333926)

The Ringworld Engineers (http://www.amazon.com/Ringworld-Engineers-Larry-Niven/dp/0345334302/ref=pd_sim_b_1)

The Ringworld Throne (http://www.amazon.com/Ringworld-Throne-Larry-Niven/dp/0345412966/ref=pd_sim_b_1)

Ringworld's Children (http://www.amazon.com/Ringworlds-Children-Larry-Niven/dp/0765341026/ref=pd_sim_b_2)

Of the four, The Ringworld Throne was the slowest and I could not put down for a second Ringworld's Children. If you love Known Space, then Ringworld's Children is the book you have been waiting decades for.

Quote from: Lawbag;386930I read the first book recently again. I own the second and third books, but won't read them for fear of them destroying in my mind the image I have built up of Ringworld.

To me, The Ringworld Engineers is almost as essential as Ringworld itself. Any later ones are OK, but those first two are must-reads. "Engineers," in my opinion, not only followed up the first book well, but made the Ringworld itself seem even more wondrous.

I really can't see the last two as "OK". Especially the last one, which basically had niven saying "Oh, by the way, pretty much everything I ever said about hyperspace was wrong, and you fell for it! Ha ha!"

Also the ridiculous idea of hyperspace monsters eating starships..ugh.

Niven's success lead him to become so smug that his head disappeared up his own asshole long ago.

Here's a review of ringworld's children from amazon:

Once there was a sci-fi writer called Larry Niven who wrote some of the most imaginative hard sci-fi of his day. Never mind that the stories were badly written, the characters two-dimensional, and the societies that he described were little more than a teen-aged boy's wet dream; the stories were so chock-full of big ideas that I avidly hunted down everything that he wrote. Then came the Larry Niven who collaborated with Jerry Pournelle. This Larry Niven was a much better writer, but his ideas became smaller and smaller until we saw sad little political tirades like "Fallen Angels". I, like so many others, have spent twenty years hoping that the old Larry Niven would return from the literary wasteland. With "Ringworld's Children" the old Niven has at least sent us a postcard.

The first Ringworld book was one of the old Larry Niven's later stories and is perhaps his grandest vision. The story is set on an artificial world that was created by building a ring around a star. The ring has the diameter of Earth's orbit, the inside is habitable, and there is enough room for almost anything to happen. Over the years Niven wrote two sequels: each less imaginative than the previous one. When "Ringworld's Children" appeared at my local library I ignored it because I was so tired of reading the awful books that Larry Niven has written over the past two decades. However, the other day I sat down and read the book and found that I could not put it down. The book is not a true return to form for Mr Niven, but it is
far better than anything that he has written since the early 1970s, and it does have the feel of his early work, right down to the bad writing.

If you like Larry Niven's early work then read this book. If you think that the Pournelle/Niven collaborations were the gospels of sci-fi then this book is probably not for you.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;386902(PROTIP: any time you see "...A Novel By BIG NAME SCI-FI AUTHOR with SMALL TIME SCI-FI AUTHOR" especially if it's one in a series?  Avoid it at all cost, it's going to suck.

Niven's the only author credited for the Ringworld books.

EDIT: Are you counting Fleet of Worlds and Juggler of Worlds? I haven't read either, but I didn't think either dealt with the Ringworld directly.

Quote from: Cylonophile;386970I really can't see the last two as "OK". Especially the last one, which basically had niven saying "Oh, by the way, pretty much everything I ever said about hyperspace was wrong, and you fell for it! Ha ha!"

There are four Ringworld books. You say the last two weren't even OK, but then this review you posted of Ringworld's Children is positive.

Also, Niven and Pournelle's "The Mote In God's Eye" is usually accounted one of the best scifi novels ever written. I agree with that. I haven't read any of Niven and Pournelle's other books, like Footfall, Inferno, or Lucifer's Hammer, but they've usually been given good notices by both fans and critics.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;386974There are four Ringworld books. You say the last two weren't even OK, but then this review you posted of Ringworld's Children is positive.

Also, Niven and Pournelle's "The Mote In God's Eye" is usually accounted one of the best scifi novels ever written. I agree with that. I haven't read any of Niven and Pournelle's other books, like Footfall, Inferno, or Lucifer's Hammer, but they've usually been given good notices by both fans and critics.

The review was weakly positive, but said that RWC wasn't as good as some of niven's work.

Quote from: Cylonophile;386970I really can't see the last two as "OK". Especially the last one, which basically had niven saying "Oh, by the way, pretty much everything I ever said about hyperspace was wrong, and you fell for it! Ha ha!"

Also the ridiculous idea of hyperspace monsters eating starships..ugh.

Hyperspace monsters were Carlos Wu's idea from the short story, "The Borderland of Sol" and were mentioned in a Known Space essay that appeared in N>Space.


And your review is typical political trolling regarding Fallen Angels, which came out in 1991 and was written by three authors - Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn.

If you want to read Fallen Angels and decide for yourself if it is a political tirade, it is available at the Baen Free Library (http://www.baen.com/library/) for download at no cost.

Mote in God's Eye and Lucifer's Hammer are great books, certainly in my top 50, if not higher. I also recommend World Out of Time, since we seem to be doing book club tonight. :)

Ringworld Engineers was frickin' awesome. Really, I like most of Niven's stuff. I think he'd be a top-10'er for sure ony my list, maybe top 5.

Lucifer's Hammer is fun, but dated in the way that only something from the 70's can be.

Yeah, well, I'm fun but dated in an early-80's way, so that might explain why I like it.

I think the main character's wife dies because she can't bring herself to leave the kitchen or flee the city without make up or something like that.