Markdoc

Re: Daily Art Findings I really, really dig this one. The costume is nice, but the presentation just makes it for me. cheers, Mark

Re: The Professions of Arms That makes sense: the only detailed descriptions we have of ancient infantry training are the republican roman ones and their training consisted mostly of: Running, lifting heavy things, running with heavy things, moving earth, running in unison and occasionally weapons drill. And the penalty for dropping out of the order of march on a run was death, so you know they took it seriously. Basically roman generals seem to have belived that if you could get your soldiers where you needed them in fairly good shape, and they coud maneuver, then it didn't matter if their combat skills were fairly basic. And judging by history, they may just have had a point. cheers, Mark

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

Re: Seeking opinion on Succor, Self Only I don't have a problem with either succour or aid self-only, as it's the cleanest build for some concepts. Sweep, however allows you to attack multiple targets (obviously can't be done with a self only power) or (as a suggested, optional, non-core rule) to use multiple attacks on one target, where that would be feasible (for example, the afore-mentioned UMA multiple limb lockup thing. Not all attacks can be swept and a power like this one, which isn't an attack anyway, should never be allowed to be swept. For me, it'd be an easy call as a GM: even as a player I wouldn't try this. If you want a similar concept (Character can power up some and with luck can power up more) then buy extra dice with an activation or skill roll. cheers, Mark

Re: Malazan Books of the Fallen HERO I finally got around to picking up a copy last week - it's sitting on my desk half-read in front of me right now. Cheers, Mark

Re: Soldiers marching. Oh and if you've ever wondered what the air/speed velocity of a swallow carrying a coconut is... or at least the metabolic requirements of a marching Roman legionary were, here's more information than you probably ever wanted http://bjsm.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/32/3/261.pdf Cheers, Mark OK, I lied about the swallows

Re: Soldiers marching.

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds? Hey, I thought it was interesting In the Martic league, I used a slightly similar approach - two of the three largest cities were founded by wizard-kings (there were 5 but 2 ofthem are now moldering ruins). In Lacramar, the wizard kings (who, like any wizard worth his salt in my game world) were immortal (or at least, don't age) became stranger and stranger and less and less involved in running the city. The bureaucracy they had set up to handle mundane details essentially became self-perpetuating by selecting new members (hence, voting) and eventually became the government. The original wizard kings are (presumably) still there, inside their palace, but these days it's a securely guarded temple, not so much to keep the wizard kings in - if that were even possible - but to keep anyone else getting in to disturb them. Offerings and documents are presented in the temple and then whisked away by the hereditary priesthood, just to show the wizard kings that their servants are still on the job, should they ever become active again. In Ilthmar, up the coast, the wizard kings likewise became strange and decadent, but the last representative there was plain nasty as well. Eventually, he drove the people to revolt and although most of the city burned down, he was eventually destroyed. The rebuilding there was overseen by an ad-hoc government of the various surving faction leaders and although over the centuries it's become similar in many ways to Lacramar - at least superficially - the different histories mean that the details and the type of people in charge are rather different. The third large city in the league is much younger - it started as a base for raiding/trading for the Olmai (northern barbarian types) and as it grew too large to manage by warlordism, consciously copied the government of the older cities. So again, the government is similar in style but in this case, it is still mostly run by the descendants of the original founders - so the flavour is different. They've never had an aristocracy, but these days, not all families are equal. So I've ended up with three democracies in one area, each with a slightly different flavour - which give me good grounds for political intrigue and thus player involvement - and which stops them seeming too "samey". cheers, Mark

Re: Doing your own calendar: is it worth it? That's a nice idea. I use multiple calendars in my game (basically each culture has one) and some other approaches are: 1. The messed-up option. Various cultures have years which are sligthly longer or shorter than 365 days - one culture has a 360 day calendar (not deliberately, but in the absence of a more evolved technology that's their best guess). As a result, their calendar gets more and more out of step with the actual year/seasons. (Lest anyone think this is too funky, the same thing happened historically: that's why January 1 2000, in Ethiopia falls in this coming September). 2. The leap year option. Some cultures do it the way we do it - some cultures add all the leap years into a longer calendar correction: the Dymerians, for example, have a 5 day festival every 20 years to correct their calendar and count in 20-year cycles. 3. No calendar as we would recognise it: the Eochail calandar doesn't have specific weeks the way we do - they have a year of 4 seasons, and the seasons are marked by astrologically-calculated festivals: so you have "the 33rd night of winter" or "14 nights before the midwinter festival" (they count nights rather than days). Since the days don't have to fit a specific written calendar, the year fluctuates in length slightly, making leap years largely academic. This sort of thing helps give a different feel without requiring the players to keep multiple calendars in their head. cheers, Mark

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

Re: old general army I don't think Detect Weakness applies - that has a specific meaning in Hero system and discerning your enemy's battle plans ain't it. However a very high skill in Tactics would do the trick and is certainly appropriate. A high roll in Strategy is also appropriate so that he can do the same thing on an abstract level. Those two between them, probably cover most of what he *has* to know. You can flavor with other skills as seems appropriate. cheers, Mark

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?

Re: "real" Magic resources

Re: Doing your own calendar: is it worth it?

Re: Doing your own calendar: is it worth it? It's simple, because all the people I play with find the concept easy to grasp, for some reason. Also, if I use that as a base, and map standard earth-like seasons on a 365 day year, they're almost exactly like the ones I'm familiar with ... oooh! Eerie! cheers, Mark

Re: old general army I think we re talking past each other here - because to me, what you are saying is "No, such a general should not have KS: civil engineering" - essentially the same as the previous posters. He knows the importance of bridges, and how they relate to his troops, but not necessarily the technical details of building them. I've made decisions on similar matters - where to place a footbridge (and what to build it out of), where to place a clinic (and what to build it out of), how many floors the office building should have, how many generators we should have, etc. But I suffer no delusions about having a KS: in civil engineering. I don't need it. That's what I have civil engineers for. What I am good at doing is resource management - we have so much money, we have so much time and this is what we need to do - how do we best deploy those resources, in that time, to get the result we need? Though speaking as someone who has climbed to near the top of his particular tree, the big cheeses do spend more time doing enjoyable time than the drones ("after all, we deserve it!") - I'm looking forward to having dinner at the Reichstag next week, for example, which will be only one of several splendid dinners on Bill Gate's dime. However, I don't think this has much to do with competence - even when (for example) going sailing on the company's (or someone else's) dime, we talk shop. That's networking - part of the management skill set, and it doesn't actually come naturally. It's a learned skill (even if some people are naturally better at it than others).

Re: Doing your own calendar: is it worth it? I do make up my own calendars, but they are all variations on the 365 day year (partly because my game world is an alternate Earth, but mostly because I want to keep things simple). Players in general, don't care that much. The calendars in general serve merely as something to dot festivals at different times of the year. cheers, Mark

Re: Cool Guns for your Games That ain't no plasma pistol - that's the HASP 220 (Hand Artillery, Self-Portable: hey, I didn't make up the name ) by Moebius, from Dystopia. Dystopia, by the bye, has a whole bunch o' weapons designed and rendered by Moebius. You have to register (it's free) to join and see the galleries, but they have some neat stuff. Here's a teaser: http://moebius.team-dystopia.com/images/Copy%20of%20P94-B%20SpecSht.jpg cheers, Mark

Re: Get your Background Skills here

Re: [What If?] Islam replaces Christianity I've snipped the rest because I basically agree with it, but I think you've picked the wrong villains. The Crusaders, bloodthirsty though they might have been, had basically been reduced to the status of minor annoyance before Islam reached its full flowering (in fact many historians have argued that by stimulating the alliance of previously opposed Islamic rulers, they facilitated it). It was the Mongols (in the 13th century) who decapitated the leading Islamic state and by destroying both the Caliphate and Baghdad (and then occupying what had been Islam's Eastern Marches - and wealthiest region) dropped the curtain pretty abruptly on Islam's glory days. While that was going on, the Crusaders were huddling in their few remaining coastal enclaves and trying not to offend the Mamluks or the Mongols, both of whom walked armies through their territories without having to fight for passage. (well apart from Julian of Sidon, who foolishly decided to make a little raid and had his city and castles summarily demolished by Hulagu). It's an idea that has intrigued me for years. The Caliphate was a secular institution (the Caliph was the "leader of the faithful", but he was not an imam or religious figure) and both relatively tolerant and relatively progressive. They kept a fairly heavy thumb on Imams with political leanings. If the Caliphate had survived, would Islamic society have continued to develop along more western lines, with a powerful church (or churches) but essentially secular government? We'll never know, of course, but it seems a suspicious coincidence to me that their progress suddenly came to an end at that point, for quite a long time - athough much of the Islamic world continued to be wealthy. cheers, Mark

Re: old general army

Re: Get your Background Skills here What are skill multipliers? cheers, Mark

Re: [Campaign] The Fearless Monster Hunters And Antonio Banderas! cheers, Mark

Re: old general army