Markdoc

Re: "So I die and then I download..."

Re: Elves

Re: human level game.... I've never run Star hero, but as a longtime modern/espionage Hero GM (and FH GM, where the same sort of problems pop up) I'd echo the "keep equipment under control" line. Even more, though, I'd specifically state "Keep armour under control". This is easy to do. In the US, which has very liberal firearms laws, you can buy (within limits) handguns and rifles - but walking down the street with a rifle is likely to draw attention. You can also buy (in some states) light body armour, but walking around wearing that is also going draw even more attention from the law. Even if you are in the military, telling the lieutenant that the squad is going to catch a movie downtown and, oh, by the way, they're taking body armour an M40 and some M16s - well.... If they have to buy weapons illegally, the game changes. A simple handgun can cost 20-50 times base price if sold illegally, and heavy weapons are simply likely to be unavailable. So, in practical terms, some advice. Keep access to weapons and - especially - body armour low key. Nothing changes the balance of combat like armour. Remember that weapons have ammo, which runs out fast, so if they are getting weapons on the black market, getting ammo for unusual weapons is very difficult. To make this stick, try to match the players off with equivalent foes. If your players are in ordinary clothes with handguns, they are not going to appreciate continually facing off against guys in combat armour, with full-auto weapons. To do it sometimes, is OK - a way of saying "these guys are badasses". Do it frequently, and your players will want the same gear. This has the added adavantage that occasionally you can let your players gear up with battlesuits and funky weapons for a real challenge and then *they* get to feel like badasses. Players like that cheers, Mark

Re: What are _____ like in your game? Me too Well, two exceptions. I do have halfings - of a kind. They are basically just very small humans and like humans, are culturally very varied. The only thing they have in common (apart from being small) is that the big folk tend to dominate and bully them while the halfings despise and distrust the big folk, who over time have stolen all the good land. Hence the origin of the "halfings as thieves" legend - the wee folk do have a tendency to help themselves to their larger neighbours' stuff when they can. Some normal human cultures lump halflings in with faeries, because they share the tendencies of being light-fingered and liking to hide and then stab you in the back, but they are actually not related. I also have ogres - a race of humans magically bred to be big and strong and not too smart. They tend not to have a distinct "ogre culture", but live in various parts of the world, so are either assimilated to the culture they live in (where they typically do jobs associated with lifting heavy things or hurting people) or are essentially tribal, in which case their nature reflects the cultures they are in contact with. The one exception to this is a kingdom which has a long, long tradition of the ruler having an "ogre guard", with their own hareems and living quarters in the central palace. They have an insular culture based very loosely on the Janissaries and revolving around absolute loyalty to the ruler, iron discipline and hurting smaller people. The other races in the game are snakemen, martians and people from the moon, but they are probably a bit far afield for this thread... cheers, Mark

Re: Elves

Re: Strangest Game Mechanic I Have Seen Yet Lars Ulrich became president? Sorry - couldn't resist. cheers, Mark

Re: Killers If only: they seem to be even more into instant gratification than pen and paper D&D'ers, plus you have to beat this PvP thing out of them... cheers, Mark

Re: Strangest Game Mechanic I Have Seen Yet Just to show there are no truly original ideas... I designed a character like this, for my girlfriend in a fantasy game where all the characters were essentially demigods/immortals (in the chinese sense). She had a VPP that could duplicate powers and skills from other people, and also had shapeshifting powers - but she could only change powers while dead. The idea was that the character could be "reborn" out of her old corpse as someone/thing else (she was playing The Hanged Man). Since none of the players in this game knew exactly what their powers were to start with (I made all the characters up after discussion with the players on what they wanted to play), this caused some amusement - especially since the first time the character "died", her comrades buried her and then proceeded on their way. Luckily, since it was a shallow grave, she was able to claw her way out (isn't that a great image?). I got some good mileage out of it since she died at the conclusion of one evening's play - I let everyone, including her, think the character was dead, and then ran a solo session, which started with her waking up in her grave.... When she finally worked out what was going on, the character became pretty blasé - throwing herself off cliffs, or in front of passing wagons, etc, which actually freaked some of the other players (not to mention their characters) out a bit. That's saying something, given that the other characters included Death and the Devil. cheers, Mark

Re: Killers Instead of dropping the Hammer of Punishment on their *** after they mess up, I'd suggest easing them into it easily, before they mess up. By that, I mean providing: a) concrete guidelines for character creation. That doesn't mean telling them what they must play, simply indicating that nigh-uncontrollable berserks or Psych Lims like "Moody psychopathic loner" or "Hates Ham" are not going to fly. Just as important, give them guidelines *in-game*. Instead of turning them loose, start them off with a mentor or an organisation. This person/group can provide guidelines and also provide feedback on what is/is not acceptable. That means instead of "We go on patrol and open a can of whoopass on some street punks we meet", that they have have a specific goal. This might sound like railroading, but the sort of D&D players that would give you this problem in the first place, will probably appreciate it, since their level of freedom has probably been choosing the right passage or the left passage. 3) Let them know that experience is given for solving problems, taken away for creating problems and that body-count is irrelevant. I've had this problem repeatedly, since I routinely have to start all of my gaming groups mostly with hero noobs, every time I move cities. And that often means recruiting D&D'ers or (shudder) computer RPG players. However, I have had very few failures (only one I can think of right now) in guiding play into a "non-loot, non-hack and slash" mentality. cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! Yeah, that *was* the problem - but I corrected the link and it works fine for me from both home and work. It may be your browser is loading the cached copy - if it isn't working, drop me a line. cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! Sorry about that - I missed some of the updated files. All worky now. cheers, Mark

Re: Julian May What I'd do is get people to buy a talent - say 10 points for active powers, 5 points (which could be upgraded later) for latency. That way either you're a meta or you're not. As far as a torc goes, that's simply a focus*, so you get more active points for the same XP outlay - remember, not every torc wearer suddenly morphed into a powerful meta: some simply gained minor powers. And not all (or even many) became fully operant - if you took the torc off someone, they usually became latent again, so it certainly behaves like a focus. Cheers, Mark *it also gives mental Def with a big side effect - if you take it off without shorting it with iron, you die.....

Re: How effective do you feel weapons should be Depends on the feel you want. If space ships are like real world aircraft (star wars) then yes, sidearms should be able to damage them. If you want them to be more like battle ships (say, WH40K), then, significant damage is not on the cards. You can, of course, mix and match, so starfighters are vulnerable to small arms while a mile-long marine assault ship is not. cheers, Mark

Re: Julian May

Re: New Advantage: Robust Immunity I'd also vote no - partly because of the concerns voiced already, partly because it overlaps too much for my taste with suppress, which can be used to do the same job. Still, on the plus side, I certainly don't see it as abusive - just unnecessary. cheers, Mark

Re: Archery Ballistics

Re: And off we go! And to the few who might be interested, the first series of adventures and NPCs are now posted for general use: http://www.rpglibrary.org/settings/gothick_empires/ under "adventures" - duh! cheers, Mark

Re: How's the Turakian Age working out for you? If you want trolls that match (very loosely) the description given, hit the web, starting here: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~gerakkag/rq.html and read up on Runequest trolls. They are one of the best-detailed original nonhuman races around, IMO, and one of the few which can play the role of bad guys and PCs equally well. cheers, Mark

Re: creating a new world using a new system like this?

Re: Archery Ballistics You got it! And the reason for a broadhead is that a wide deep wound bleeds more than a narrow deep wound. cheers, Mark

Re: Archery Ballistics

Re: Julian May Nah, that's handwavium. Aiken drum was latent, then became a powerful operant, then continued to increase in power and then had two "radiation accidents" and became uberpowerful. His "potential" may have been enormous, but it didn't increase until his player spent points on it. Marc, for example spends months improving his D-jumping ability, Felice continues to increase in power and gains extra abilities as the story goes on, etc, etc. Indeed, the theme of metas becoming more and more powerful as they developed their abilities is common in the books, both the Pleistocene and galactic mileu series. So potential may be set by genetic parameters (and you could maybe require a talent to be a meta) but actual levels of power are driven by character development, just as they would be in a game. If a PC becomes a powerful meta, it's because he has good genes - but it's not necessary to model that any more than in a supers game you pay for being a mutant. cheers, Mark

Re: Elves

Re: Magaic System Question #8 There's two ways. the first and easiest is simply say it's the carpet that flies and it can carry people (build it as a summoned vehicle, if you really want to stat it out). People can still fall off or jump off etc. Or build it as flight, area effect, with a universal focus. It's not really usable against others since you could always just hop off or refuse to get on, and it's not really usable by others since you can't fly off on your own bit of carpet. If you hate the area effect, then build it as usable by others and then limit it. But in this case, since everyone is flying, no-one can fall off - you'd have to actively choose to move outside the area of effect - effectively jumping off. On the other hand if the caster can make it fly without being on it then a limited UBO is the way to go. cheers, Mark

Re: Archery Ballistics Sounds reasonable - but is not actually true, and we have 150 years of surgical experience to confirm this. The reason we use the sharpest possible blades (or lasers) in surgery is not to leave a clean edge, but to reduce the amount of collateral damage.