Markdoc

Re: Turakian Age Arabia? Not really. You've got yer quasi-greek, quasi-roman/medieval, quasi-scythian, quasi-viking, quasi-italianate, plus generic pirate, barbarian and rogue and a couple that are hard to quantify - but nothing that says "arabic" apart from the deserty-wandering people who are kind of vaguely cryto-bedouin. cheers, Mark

Re: Gold!!!! either way, that's a lot of money cheers, Mark

Re: Sci-fi wear swords? It is kind of relevant - it shows how cultural norms affect things. The "bladed weapons more illegal than guns" is strictly an american thing. Here it's the reverse. Apart from cops/military you never see firearms in the street, while it's not at all unusual to see swords or axes - some people still wear swords as part of their dress uniforms. We were coming back from the movies about 6 weeks ago and got onto the metro - there were a half dozen vikings in mail, with helmets, axes and swords. The metro steward had no problems with the armour or weapons, but told them they couldn't wear their helmets in the train Which simply makes the point again. There's no *practical* reason to favour melee weapons - so make up magitech, legal or cultural ones that suit your game. cheers, Mark

Re: Sci-fi wear swords? It's simply that it's cool and encourages martial arts which make for fun play. Think about it. If the Bride wanted to kill her enemies, it would have made a lot more sense to simply stick a bomb under their trailer or shoot them from a dozen blocks away when they came out of their nightclub. But then we miss out on the massed swordfights, people getting their eye plucked out and stamped on, and such. I mean, really, how much fun is that? cheers, Mark

Re: Sci-fi wear swords? Actually, the officers of the Shogunate realised that peasants and zamabushi with guns were quite capable of defeating armoured sword-wielding samurai (even when outnumbered). Guns were also the weapon of choice in sieges - and post Segikahara, most major battles involved seiges. So they decided on a "swords and bows only" policy was best for keeping power in the hands of the people with most swords (ie: them). Hideoyoshi started it by banning *all* weapons in the hands of peasants while Ieyasu extended that to guns in other hands. It probably would not have worked in a society less gonzo over swords, or in one which was less repressive. but it's not like the Japanese all suddenly decided they didn't like guns anymore - the policy was enforced from the top - and rather brutally, too. They never did get rid of all guns - but they did keep them at a level where they were rarely used. Still - it is an example of a society that has simply chosen to use swords over guns - if it happened once, it could happen again. It's also an example of what happens when sword-users come up against gun-users. Even when it ended in hand to hand combat - whether it's English seamen versus Japanese pirates in the 16th century or samurai versus Royal marines in the 19th or Japanese on Japanese in either of those centuries, the swordusers got their butt handed to them in no uncertain fashion. cheers, Mark

Re: Gold!!!! 1000 posts? Shucks, I didn't even notice. Anyway - post counts, rep - a jedi cares not for these things. cheers, Mark

Re: Gold!!!! Hmm. Volume of a sphere (4/3) [pi] r^{3} radius of a golf ball about 2 cm Volume of a golf ball about 31 cubic cm Gold weighs about 19.3 grams per cubic cm if I recall correctly, so you're looking at about about 589 grams or a little over a pound. cheers, Mark

Re: Valdorian Age Campaign A Go! He needed a friendly druid. See, one of the things that amused me in DandD is that Dinosaurs are considered "natural animals". So they are suscpetible to spells like "charm animal" and "enlarge animal" So one of my characters (Fonographix the Bard) who was tired of having his warhorses nuked, I mean fireballed, out from under him, charmed a T-Rex and then had our friendly local magic-user polymorph it into a warhorse. Better saves, better THACO, way more hitpoints and exactly the attitude you want in a warhorse. cheers, Mark

Re: Sci-fi wear swords? The standard argument : "not so random or clumsy as a blaster" Real answer: there isn't one. All the reasons given here - never run out of ammo, used as boarding weapons for spaceships made of explodium, etc, apply equally to the world today and the only people who use swords as real weapons are those who can't get guns. I mean really, we have bullets designed for inside commercial airliners, I figure in the future, we'll be able to at least match 1970's technology - though hopefully with better design sense. So... make up your own reason. Dune style force-fields, restrictive weapons laws, cultural disgust, etc. One I idea I played around with was that personal forcefields were common. Such a forcefield creates a "one-way discontinuity" so energy impinging on it from outside is simply bled off into another dimension, but inside (or going out the other way) there's no effect. Since this field is generated from a point source, they are spherical - so to cover a person you need a radius of about two meters. When two force fields meet, they meld. So shooting at someone was OK - but you had to be within at a minimum of a couple of metres, and preferably much closer - at which point melee weapons or martial arts suddenly seem like a much more viable option. Heavy weapons could still exist, because a large shell could carry its own forcefield generator, but personal weapons could not. In game, it works exactly as a regular FF, with a few limitations. So it's not a perfect protection - throw enough energy at it and it can only absorb so much, and like any technology it's not 100 % efficient (so with much pushing you could squeeze though a gap smaller than two metres). You can wear the generator placed so that the bottoms of your feet stick out so you can move around without having to overcome the energy loss of pushing the discontinuity against the ground This idea was for a "space opera" game with swords and martial arts in space and frantic boarding actions, etc. If you don't like it, make up another reason! cheers, Mark

Re: Opinion: Double Damage Reduction

Re: Opinion: Double Damage Reduction

Re: Opinion: Double Damage Reduction

Re: Infinite Crisis They're simply seting up for the big DC-Marvel crossover series "Infinite Secret Crisis Wars on Multiple Earths"

Re: Character Build Suggestions Wanted Geez, it was a joke! Actually, even if you don't like Woody Allen, you might like Zelig - it's pretty atypical for him and also pretty funny. Anyhoo, you seem to basically have a grip on what you need, but to lay it out, here's what I'd do. Shapeshift (humanoid, or possibly even limit it to human, depending on your intent) Mimicry Acting Disguise and either: 10 x Cramming (to allow the acquistion of 10 skills at the FAM: level) or (my choice): mimic pool (30 point VPP, defined as "only skills/talents the target has") allowing up to 30 points of skills and talents to be grafted on - or more if there are limitations attached. and either: Retrocognition (defined as psychometry: can "see" the past of a person/object by touching them/it) or: Telepathy (only to read memories, -1/2) that should do the trick. cheers, Mark

Re: Character Build Suggestions Wanted As does the Woody Allen movie "Zelig". Cheers, Mark

Re: Valdorian Age at 1/2 Price -- should I buy it? And just so we have all viewpoints represented, I'm completely indifferent to the chargen rules. They're a suggestion and I can see what they're for, but I don't use such a system in my own S&S style games - I just start players off with less points, which has much the same effect. As for the Valdorian age, I was happy with it even at full price, though I agree that Elweir itself is a bit bleh. cheers, Mark

Re: Iron Heroes' Token System

Re: A thought on armour piercing It's an old way of doing things, in fact - a partially limited power. what i have been doing for many years to make "cut through anything" swords is buy a large RKA and then partially limit it so that most of the damge is "armour-negating" thus: Stonecutter - 4d6 HKA (standard effect -0, only to exceed defence, -1/2) +2d6 HKA (OAF, sword, -1, 2 handed, -1/2, Independant,-2) for 90 active, 17 real. This gives you a weapon that does normal 2 handed sword damage, but basically ignores defences up to 12 DEF (hardened or otherwise), which in a fantasy world lets you slice through normal armour like it wasn't there, or cut stone and metal. But it doesn't let you blow huge holes in things with one attack. There is some debate about the value of the limitation "only to exceed defences" - against a heavily armoured target it's no limitation at all - against lightly armored targets, it's a huge limitation. In games with Active points limits you also have to decide if this a 90 point power, a 30 point power or somewhere in between The linked suggestion falls down simply because you either have to buy the linked attack NND, making it small and expensive, or it goes up against the defence - making it essentially useless, except for special attacks/ special effects (poison on a dart, a flaming sword or similar). cheers, Mark

Re: Radical Approach To Skills I'm not even sure it's that realistic - a really smart generalist *can* often outperform a not-terribly smart specialist even in their specialised area: unless that area requires translational skills (code-writing, or speaking a foreign language, for example) or muscle-memory skills (disassembling a specialised piece of equipment, say) where practice counts. cheers, Mark

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien? And as for Lieber versus Moorcock, again I'll take both. Lieber basically invented the fantasy-buddy and gritty fantasy genres, but the writing is just "OK" - and some the very last stories are rubbish. Moorcock is responsible for all that Law versus Chaos stuff, plus pretty much invented the angsty, irritating hero. Unlike Lieber, his writing has gotten noticeably better with time (see, for example, Gloriana) - but his latest Elric books are pretty awful. Instead of being angsty and violent Elric (Blood and souls for my lord Arioch!) is developing noticeable hippy qualities (Can't we all just get along? No? Well, I'll have to kill you then - but I want you to know I won't enjoy it. Ick. Still they're both worth a read. Unlike the Shannara series, which is only one step above toilet paper, because - based on personal experience - the paper is too rough... cheers, Mark

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien?

Re: Fantasy University Floor Plans Outside the building. Where, outside exactly? Oh, anywhere.... cheers, Mark

Re: Iron Heroes' Token System OK, so the easiest way to do this is levels with time delay (or a custom limitation). Extra CSLs can't be used for AP or other benefits but can be used for extra damage or aimed shots. That works pretty much as well, since both options allow you to do extra damage (ie: devastating attacks) or hit things at longer range. Next easiest would simply to apply the extra time limitation to Talents. OTOH, the combat maneuvers alreday avaialable in Hero simulate a lot of this anyway with, brace, set, sweeps and haymakers. You have to ask - is it worthwhile? In hitpoint based systems, "standing and taking it" is one thing. In Hero system, that's much more likely to result in a KO'd player. cheers, Mark

Re: Herophile Fantasy art Sweet. You just made me waste 15 minutes of desperately needed work time by poking through the rest of the gallery since there's some new stuff there. Ah - nostalgia: the child's guide to giant-slaying Anyway, whilst awash in memories of playing DandD, here's a picture fo our current d20 party. My character is the kneeling redhead - I think I posted him before, but the rest should be new. Unfortunately, the picture is already out of date (the day after I did the picture ). In the last adventure, the hobbit Paladin (whose idea was allowing that kind of thing, anyway?) was bullrushed by an Ogre and pushed into a very deep pit. The Ogre didn't stop in time, and also fell in, which gave the hobbit some momentary satisfaction. Then it landed on him, extinguishing both the satisfaction and the hobbit. cheers, Mark

Re: Rough Magic