Markdoc

Re: No Horses For You As for the horse thing, I have actuallly decided for the curent game "No Horses For You". I use big riding birds instead. This was a deliberate design decision, intended (and apparently successfully) to "shock" the players out the usual mindset as an easy way to point out "this is not medieval Europe". cheers, Mark

Re: No Horses For You

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others There's a problem with this hypothesis. I don't read RPG.net, or indeed any gaming board except this one. I was unaware of the flames about 4E's new direction and was curious about how 4E would look/play. And on buying the books and reading them my reaction was "OMG! 1z teh MMORPG!" Basically, everything from design choices to language choices points in that direction - and I have read the books: all three core books, from cover to cover, at least a couple of times each. So here's an alternate hypothesis: people speak of 4E as being a pen and paper MMORPG .... because that's what it looks like. If you want evidence, look at the rules, language and design philosophy, as noted earlier in the thread. And note, I'm not hating. I've actually bought as many 4E books now as I've bought 3.5E and would happily play it. I'm already on record with my review of the rules. But it reads as though it was designed to give an MMORPG-like experince - I cannot deny the evidence of my own eyes. cheers, Mark

Re: Dual Strike As an aside, you're doing this wrong: one of the most broken things about Deadly Blow is that it adds to the base damage, so the calculation is broadsword (4 DC, +3 DC Deadly blow = 7 DC, can be doubled to 14), + 1 DC (levels) +2 DC Martial arts, +2 DC from STR for a total of 12 DC or 4d6 HKA. This can be increased to the full 14 DC (4 1/2d6 HKA with a haymaker, though it'd rarely be worth the effort). That means your average is 14 BOD, which means you're dealing a major amouit of BOD even though plate armour on an average roll and mail armour is largely irrelevant. As it stands, Deadly Blow is highly unbalancing in most heroic games. Cheers, Mark

Re: Dual Strike How about this: 3d6+1 HKA (50 Active Points); Requires a fighting tricks roll to increase damage (-1/2), cannot do more than double damage of weapon used (-1/2), OIF (Weapons of Opportunity; -1/2), Extra Time (Full Phase, -1/2). Real: 16, Tricks Roll: -5. You are making the early versions too complicated by focusing on the freebie weapon, which, when all is said and done, is just a special effect. Instead, just buy a 3d6+1 HKA, for which your freebie weapon is merely a focus. Essentially, you are forgoing the freebie weapon in exchange for a more powerful attack. As set up, if you use a dagger, you do dagger damage unless you make your fighting tricks roll, in which case it does double dagger damage. If you use a greatsword, it does greatsword damage, unless you make your fighting tricks roll, in which case it does double greatsword damage. Since I did not include STR min, even a 10 STR character with this power could do up to 4d6 HKA with a greatsword, if he made his fighting tricks roll - which is where the weapon would normallly max out (2x base damage). Still, 3d6+1 would allow a character with a more powerful weapon to still double its damage, up to an substantial 6 1/2 d6. That should be enough for most games Other comments: I left RSR at -1/2 because although you still get to use the power even if you fail it, you don't get any benefit: you merely do the damage that you would have done with the weapon you are using anyway. I only gave "cannot do more than double" only a -1/2 based on the assumption that people would usually have access to a range of weapons and would choose hurty ones when they wanted This is a substantial limit though, which will almost always affect the power. I could easily see going to -1 or even higher. It doesn't change the real cost much, though. cheers, Mark

Re: Ideas for combat runes Try not to get captured? This is a problem in Runequest, where captured foes are usually mutilated - at least a little - to mess up their tattoos. You don't need to whack the whole hand off, but making a couple of cuts was definately in order. This fact is why some people actually prefer to put the rune on the item, rather than on themselves.... cheers, Mark

Re: Chtulhu When I have run Lovecraftesque horror games, I don't bother statting out the major nasties. If they turn up - or even partially turn their attention to the PCs - they are all dead, mindblasted or converted to somewhere/something else. The whole point of cosmic horror to me is that there are things that no human - no matter how resolute or well armed - can even begin to approximate to come close to harming. The whole goal is to avoid drawing their attention. More minor minions are worth statting out, but the biggies? "Rocks fall. Everybody dies." We play Arkham horror on a regular basis and occasionally we have failed to prevent the Great Old One of the Week from materialising. But as often as not, we manage to fight it off successfully. And you know, after the combat, thinking "Wow, I helped fight off Nyarlothep with my trusty tommy gun and a bottle of whisky" doesn't feel like an achievement .... it just feels wrong. cheers, Mark

Re: Genetic Engineering? You are right. We have quite detailed records from diaries and accounts of late preindustrial farm work in Europe and during the summer the day started between 4 and 5 am. Workers would have a snack (usually something like small beer and a mug of thin porridge or a slice of bread and lard) head out to work, come back around 9 for breakfast, work through the day with a break at lunch time around 1 or 2 pm, keep working until dinner (6 pm) and depending on the time of year either work another 3 hours until supper (9 pm) or return to the farm and do chores. Even during the winter, there was plenty of work from handcrafting all the utensils and tools used arond the farm, to making items such as baskets, clothes or utensils for sale. A 12-16 hour workday was the norm, not the exception. Reading some of those old accounts makes me realise how good we have it today. Also why obesty was not a problem despite the huge amount of eating that went on. Basically back then, life was work, for most people and it's striking how rarely people just "sat around": there was alwasy something that needed doing. Festivals and the sabbath were it as far as lesiure went. cheers, Mark

Re: The Lost Origin of Evolution Ah - OK. That makes good sense. I was extrapolating forward from what we do today, which occasionally includes tracing gene movements through populations that are now extinct, so it seemed like a reasonable approach. OTOH, you could solve that angle by simply having the progenitors not seed planets "as they came to them", but move about based on other criteria (wormhole technology, for example) or differential rates of genetic development (If the basic conditions for life worth tinkering with require rare stochastic events - as they probably do - then two planets that developed at roughly the same time might be at wildly different places on the ladder of life, for example). cheers, Mark

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Heh. I read it in Danish, so merely translated the title back into English without thinking about it. Now that you mention it, of course, I should have realised the actual title, given the influence of the Jerome K. Jerome book cheers, Mark

Re: The Lost Origin of Evolution No, but I'm assuming that by the time we have usable interstellar travel, we should have upgraded our computing power somewhat cheers, Mark

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... And on the reading front "And not to mention the Dog" by Connie Willis. Fun, cheerful, time travel romp with lots of references to classic victorian / early 20th C english literature. I'd class it as good light entertainment that doesn't make your brain feel like it slept through the book. cheers, Mark

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

Re: The Lost Origin of Evolution Well, for a start, various religions would claim this "proved" their deity of choice had created life - but encountering other species, wth different religions would knock most religions for a bit of loop, to start with. Meanwhile, scientists would start comparing structures from different worlds and constructing phylogenetic trees to try and find out which world was first seeded, determine the origin of the gene stock, etc. If you could do that, you could work out which direction the progenitors came from and try and track them back to their planet of origin. Even if that planet was destroyed millions of years ago, you should still be able to determine that by tracking radiation release. cheers, Mark

Re: Modern Swordsmithing Right. This is largely what I meant about "projecting modern sensibilities back onto medieval swordsmanship", because modern fencing has sweet fanny adams to do with medieval sword styles. It's a sophisticated martial art all of its own, which has about as much to do with using a sword in battle as kendo does (which is to say: not even a teensy-weensy bit) But it *is* used as a springboard for a lot o action movie swordsmanship, which is where we get all this clash of blades stuff. cheers, Mark

Re: Modern Swordsmithing You're mostly right - but the issue (as with anything medieval) is pretty complex. In general medival swordfighting, as far as I can tell, did not use the sword parry much if at all, relying on armour and the shield. Many swords, which we know were used in battle, show no signs of parrying damage at all, though they show signs of having been used to cut hard things (including human bone, in some cases). Several of the renaissance fencing manuals actively discouraged the use of the parry at all (though others do advocate it). The conclusion I take from this is that in many areas, the sword parry was considered a desperation move. It's a mistake, often made, to project modern techniques of swordsmanship and our own, modern idea of "martial arts" back onto an era when both concepts were unknown and swordfighting only part of a highly specialised skill aimed at combat in armor. In the 1700's, when swords were still used in battle, instructions for their use were printed. The ones from "Rules and Regulations for the Sword Exercise of the Cavalry" which was printed in 1796 for the War office in Whitehall, states: The "bevel" referred to is the side of the sword closest to the edge. However, the highland foot regiments, which tended to use much heavier infantry swords, may have trained using an edge parry. In that case, perhaps the damge to the edge - which was in any case much less fine - was considered acceptable, since the heavy sword was used for a long time together with a targe, so the sword parry may have been an auxilliary technique. Alternatively, this may be a confusing of bevel and edge. Last of all, many medieval swords have what is called a fort - a thickened, unsharpened base to the blade which in some cases, could be up to a third of the sword's length. This was apparently used for parrying, or - if we can believe some of the German feltbuche - for breaking your opponent's sword in a counterstrike. So there you have it: in real life sword combat, the edge is used for parrying, never, rarely, or occasionally, depending on the style of sword and style of fighting cheers, Mark If you want some informative, if slightly ranty discursions on the topic you can try: http://www.thearma.org/essays/parry.htm http://www.thearma.org/essays/edgemyth.htm

Re: Our New Pulp HERO Game: Adventures in Political Incorrectness

Re: And off we go! Thanks. I have abunch more to write up - but have been so busy since I got back to Europe .... I'll try and get a couple of sessions up this weekend. cheers, Mark

Re: Magic Jar I've used this in the past and built it as a very large mindcontrol with Telepathic and the limitations: Concentration (0 DCV throughout, unaware of surroundings) Focus (OIF, fragile, expensive) Side effect - a big ol' RKA - if the focus is destroyed while "in use" All or nothing: must achieve +30 effect plus Mindlink, usable as attack, lined to Mind control. That way the caster does his mind attack thing, if he succeeds, he gets total control of the body, plus a mindlink so he can see what it sees, maintain the mind control etc. While he is doing so, however, his own body is essentially inert. To use the spell or return to his own body, he needs to use the jar, making him briefly susceptible to the side effect. This is different from the classic spell, in that if you kill his body, he still dies. The other way we have played it is simply two linked transforms: victim into jar, mage into copy of victim, with the side effect that the latter leaves a copy of the mage's body behind. That works, but is (IMO) slightly kludgy. cheers, Mark

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs Oh, I don't know: what about "field rations"? cheers, Mark

Re: Help with Fire Elves This in fact is exactly what "fire elves" or "salmanders" as they are often called, do in my game: they live in fiery places and are actually on/of fire themselves. Put them out and they die. cheers, Mark

Re: Why don't you play online? When I was in the states for 3 months, I kept my game going via skype - all the players gathered at our place, and I "phoned in" my performance. It went really well and we'll do it again if a play date falls when I am out travelling, if time allows. I can see a game working fine even with players in seperate locations, since you talk rather than type, and have visual contact so I can show the players sketches when needed and you get the body language thing. I doubt I'd want to exchange frequent physical contact with friends for an online game, but it's a more than acceptable addition to the GM' arsenal. cheers, Mark

Re: Which mechanic for magic works best First off, try and think how you would like your magic system (or systems) to work. Maybe think about fantasy books that you liked the feel of magic in. We can then probably suggest something to fit. cheers, Mark

Re: Ultimate Grimoire Letter M

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? How many movies are improved by ad breaks? Well, apart from Battlefield Earth.... cheers, Mark