explorers from Known Space, sent as scouts to the Ringworld. They can be anthropologists, artists, doctors, police, or even zealots, who will explore the mysteries of this huge artificial world and its inhabitants. Basic characters can be humans from a dozen planets of Human Space, Puppeteers, or Kzin. Later play can see characters from Ringworld species, such as the (so-called) Ghouls, Vampires, Giants, Sea People, and others. This Ringworld focus has been a criticism of the game. The Ringworld role-playing game is not a 'full' science fiction RPG, like Traveller, including, for example, rules for starship construction, space combat, travel to different planets and systems, and so forth. Instead, the game and rules focused on parties of characters exploring the Ringworld itself, and, despite its vast size (with a surface area larger than that of all of Known Space's inhabited planets put together), many who bought the game felt limited by this one world setting. Game system A character is initially defined by his species or world of origin, which affects characteristics (for example, by determining the gravity to which it is accustomed). Then the players roll randomly for a certain number of defects, character age, and characteristics. The system used is Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing, with eight basic characteristics: Strength, Constitution, Mass (equivalent to Size in other BRP games), Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, Appearance and Education determining secondary attributes such damage modifiers, hit points, and skill rolls. At creation, each character gets to spend a number of points (based mainly on age, Education, and Intelligence) on skills determined by interests or career choice. Each of the three playable races has specific tables for the creation of characters. Character Skills are based on percentages. To succeed in a skill, the player must roll under the relevant skill with modifiers on percentile dice. Another critique of the game system has been the large effect of character age on skills, usually considered the most important character attributes. In Niven's future world, the deterioration of age has been largely reversed, so humans live hundreds of years. Therefore, a 200-year-old character will have vastly more skill points than a 20-year-old, with little compensatory advantages for the younger one. Publications Only two publications were published, the Ringworld role-playing game box set itself, and the Ringworld Companion, both in 1984 by Chaosium. The magazine Different Worlds, issue 37, featured a Ringworld adventure, "Louis Wu & His Motley Crew."