Markdoc

Re: My Tank is Fight! by Zack Parsons Yeah, the soviets never gave up the idea of airborne cavalry (armor). By the cold war they actually had a working airdrop system where they would drop light AFVs with a combo parachute/retrorocket system that essentially turned the AFV into a crudely steerable paraglider and progressed so far as doing live drops with crew inside the vehicle. Of course, it was never used in combat, but still ... cheers, Mark

Re: My Tank is Fight! by Zack Parsons Well, to be fair, it actually did work. Ladies an' jemmemumm! I present ..... the Antonov A-40! The idea was to tow it aloft with a heavy bomber, then release it and let it glide to its target. Once landed, it could just drop the glider and cruise off. The one time they tried it, the tank actually did fly. But the problem was the lack of heavy bombers that could tow them safely: they were so heavy and had so much drag, that the towing aircraft was on the verge of stalling and had to cut the tank loose. If I was running a Golden age campaign, I would so include working versions of these guys! Edit: Oh, and "My Tank is Flight!" cheers, Mark

Re: Piercing It shouldn't be unbalancing at all - in most cases, you'd be better off simply using them to add damage. cheers, Mark

Re: District B13 Martial Art I've seen the film. The martial art style is "movie-fu" . That said David Belle has mostly trained in Wushu/Kung Fu. You could go that route, but given the way he fought in the movie, I'd suggest combining points in leaping, climbing and acrobatics combined with Capoeira. It has that tumbling, acrobatic feel and the maneuvers fit pretty well with the way he fights in the film. cheers, Mark

Re: My Tank is Fight! by Zack Parsons

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Man, that's a great film! We watched Terminator: salvation the other night. Not a great film. Not even a good film. More a series of clichés loosely interleaved with plot holes and held together by explosions. I'd rate it a solid "Sorta OK, I guess". There were some cool explosions, though. cheers, Mark

Re: How do you find the lost tomb of Genghis Khan? Well, we don't know if he could write cheers, Mark

Re: How do you find the lost tomb of Genghis Khan?

Re: How do you find the lost tomb of Genghis Khan?

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #5: Body-Affecting Powers Yep, pretty much: I run fairly tactical-heavy combats and the hex grid has been optional for 20+ years. I'm just not getting the problem here. Even when we have a hex map, I've always allowed people to move in straight lines, even if it crossed over hex corners: I just measure their move and say "You end in this hex". Same with turn modes. I agree a hex map makes things easier, if you are using miniatures, but the size of the hex is irrelevant - occasionally I define the hexes as metres, occasionally I have defined them as 5 metres, when we are operating at longer ranges. Edit: and as for the changes, they look good to me. cheers, Mark

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far My experience has been the same as Klaus', though most of the games I run myself have been FH, pulp or SciFi. One of the things in the great STR debate* which has always puzzled me is that people say that the cost of STR is to some extent balanced out by power frameworks, but that's always made me go "What? Your bricks don't have power frameworks?" If you played in a gaming group where bricks usually didn't have frameworks, that might account for the different perspective - but I think I've only ever played one brick who didn't have a framework (and he had OIHD, which is like having everything in a framework!) - or use foci, or similar. The same was true for the rest of the players in the groups I've played with. Cheers,Mark *It looks like 6E, by breaking Figureds away, has finally laid the great STR debate to rest.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? We just saw that last weekend - it had a surprisingly brief stint in the theatres here, so we caught it on DVD (in 2D, not 3D). Good, light hearted fun. Also started watching an anime series I got from my sister-in law: "Technolyze". Cool visuals, interesting background (it's set in a sort of ultra-industrial dystopia, where the wealthy get extended lifespans and capabilities via cybernetics or "technolyzing" and everybody else, it seems, gets the shaft). Definitely not lighthearted fun! It is holding my interest so far, though. cheers, Mark

Re: Pirates of not Freeport or the Caribbean

Re: FH Arcane Magic System. Critical Comments Wanted One last point: if you want to get even closer to the 2E feel, you might like to require that all spells take "one charge, -2". That would reduce the cost of the VPP slightly and also reduce the cost of each spell. That way the wizard would be able to cram as many spells into his VPP as he liked (including multiples of the same spell, if he liked) but once used, they'd be gone until he could study up again. cheers, Mark

Re: Stormbringer universe to HS One way to do it might be ... transform! Actually, I'm only partly kidding. One of the tropes in my fantasy game is that all magic items have to be paid for by points. Not necessarily by the person who carries it, but by the person who makes it. Since most artificer types are not that keen on spending their own XP (life force) to make items for sale, they often look for ways to get someone else to carry the burden. The typical way is a sacrifice (either willing or not). It doesn't have to be physical - in the game, a witch made a protective charm for the players in exchange for memories of a happy event, in another case a wizard taught one some spells in exchange for some years of life (in both cases the PCs lost some XP, that were transferred to the item/NPC) and the lost XP was covered in one case by a small disadvantage. However there is a cult that makes powerful magic items by summoning demons and binding them into the item (ie: they summon and trap the demon, and then transform the demon into the desired item). This has the advantage that it's cheap (you get a lot of free points in a demon!) but has the disadvantage that ... well ... your magic item is actually powered by a demon. And since it's a transform, you have to have some way for the demon to "heal back" (typically some gobbledygook "Like in a week where two Mondays come together" etc). And if it's smashed, or dispelled .... I had the classic Niven bit, where at one point the PC with the neato-kewl magic sword gets it dispelled and then discovers he's holding a very angry demon by the foot .... So, I'm not suggesting that the player in question does this. But he could buy the magic item with the powers he wants and then limit it by associating the item with a specific demon, which gets him a pretty decent recoverable focus bonus. In other words, to generate a 20 active point power, he needs to summon 20 active points worth of demon first (not the actual points in the summon power, just the points in the demon). This is pretty much what he's suggesting. Whether the demon is a demon of protection or a Demon of seduction is pretty much up to the sorceror, but should be reflected in it's stat.s and powers. cheers, Mark

Re: My Tank is Fight! by Zack Parsons

Re: Medieval records go online And here's the database. Priceless stuff! cheers, Mark

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

Re: And off we go! Meanwhile Gen has swum to the edge of the lake and concealed himself in some reeds. He retrieves his clothes from the cask, dresses and then fills his cask and then walks to one of the gates as if leaving with water. The guards turn him back, saying only the front gate is open. He goes to the front gate, sees the guards checking passes and turns away. No-one pays much attention to a young man carrying a water barrel and after wandering for a while, he finds refuge in a stable. After talking to two boys there, they give him bread and egg. Somewhat fortified, he heads to the palisade on the side closest to the mountain. Glancing about, all seems quiet, so he walks up to the palisade, puts his barrel down and climbs on – then drives his dagger into the wood. Stepping on that he can jump high enough to catch the edge of the palisade and he is just climbing over when a soldier comes around the corner of a building. The soldier immediately shouts at Gen to stop, and when Gen hauls himself onto the palisade, throws a spear, which just misses Gen, as he jumps to the ground on the other side. Gen rolls down into the ditch on the other side, scrambles out, grabs the spear and runs towards the rough ground. Behind him, the alarm is raised. Gen runs, but weak from hunger has to slow after a minute or two, before he passes out. He gathers berries from the bushes as he goes and by the time a file of soldiers comes running from the fort, is among the bushes on the mountainside. The mountainside is rough and pocked with holes. Some of them seem to go down a fair distance into the ground and Gen investigates one of these as a possible hiding place. Rough steps cut into the ground lead to a rectangular portal and Gen realizes that it is artificial – a buried building. Going further inside he enters a large room with columns and hiding behind a column he kicks something which rolls across the floor, echoing. It is a skull. A few seconds’ investigation shows more bones, some of them cracked open and Gen realizes the dank smell might not all come from the soil. He flees out of the hole and the soldiers spot him. Gen runs again, heading always up the mountainside, using the many holes and pits to shelter his movement as much as possible. Gen has spotted a place where the mountainside comes up to the top of the great wall and realizes that the same landslide that buried all these buildings must also have breached the wall. There is a palisade with watchtowers there, but it seems like his best chance to get into the ruins and away from the soldiers. Eventually, Gen picks another dark hole. As he ran he gathered likely looking bits of wood and binding them together and splintering the ends with is knife, he makes a crude torch and presses into the darkness. Passing down a long colonnaded hall, he enters a large columned room and chooses a side doorway. This gives onto a staircase that leads down – and down and down. Gen persists, hoping to find water. Eventually, the staircase passes through an arch and now there is only a wall on one side – the other side is open to darkness, and judging by the lack of echoes gives onto a huge space. Gen goes down. Eventually, the staircase ends at a stone pier projecting from the wall, into a dark liquid. At its end stand two statues carved like robed skeletons. Gen pauses. Is this the sea? He looks down into the water, which smells foul and seems oily. He throws a stone raising some sluggish ripples. Then he hears a plop and a gurgle far out in the dark. A slow wave rolls in, as though something large had surfaced. Gen turns and retreats – then he hears what sounds like wet feet slapping the stone behind him and he runs up to the surface as fast as he can, eventually burrowing in under a bush. He plans to hide there and cross the palisade at night. While all of this is going on, the rest of the group exits the high priest’s house and walks quickly back to the flying ship. Despite the alarm, the guards they see do not seem to be paying attention to them (It was Gen climbing over the wall that caused the alarm). There are two guards there but they are not suspicious of the group when they explain the high priest has sent them back to get some of his things and the other member of their group who has been watching them. They collect Dalarna and a sack with their weapons and some gear and then walk around the corner of the monastery, out of sight of the guards. But they have not gone very far when they hear what is obviously another alarm bell. This time the game is definitely up. Dalarna summons a fog and they run for the back gate. It is only closed with a bar and they open it and run for the hills. They don’t get very far before the fog is dispelled, and take cover in a shallow ravine. Off in the distance they can see a group of soldiers (chasing Gen, although they don’t know that) and a second group with Qurrock riders comes out the gate they have just left. The riders spread out and start searching, but suddenly stop and the PCs notice them looking up at a nearby ridge top. There are a dozen armed men there, one of whom seems to be sitting on a giant toad-like creature. The newcomers have a savage aspect. There is a brief standoff and then the soldiers turn around and ride back into their fort. The party creeps away looking for a hiding place and soon find another excavated doorway. They hasten inside. Dalarna uses his magic to sense the space goes far back into the mountain so Aquila gathers wood from the bushes nearby to make torches and a fire. The light reveals two large brass doors. One has been forced open, the other is still partially embedded in the hard clay. Steps beyond the door lead up to a passage and then a high domed building. It was once heavily decorated, but the decorations have been prised out of the walls. They continue to explore, going through passages, both part of buildings and dug through the earth and finally find water in a depression. Halting there, they rest and Khatz scries Gen’s shortsword to determine his destination. After some time, he sees a vision of another palisaded fort – but he thinks that this is one they glimpsed among the ruins inside the great walls. It seems they have to go into the ruins if they are to find Gen. As darkness falls, Gen prepares to make his move – but glancing over his shoulder, he can see a bluish-green light issuing from the cavern he investigated before and recalling the wet footsteps, he decides to move now. He crawls down the hillside and eventually sees the breach in the wall. It is spanned by a palisade with a gate and over-watched by two towers with lit torches. The ground along the palisade is cleared, so there is little cover. Off to the side is another enclosed palisade with a stout blockhouse. Gen creeps along this palisade and then dashes towards the one spanning the breach. But he is spotted in the torchlight and a voice shouts out in Samadrian that he is to halt, or they will shoot. Tired, hungry, thirsty and unarmoured – and afraid of what might come out of holes in the dark mountain - Gen surrenders. Two soldiers come out of the blockhouse and escort him into a small but solid cell, locking him in. Gen is a prisoner of the Samadrians!

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Here's something for stopping extra-large zombies (only one at a time, mind you). A pistol chambered for .510 BMG! http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/4097/50bmghandgun1hk.jpg http://img436.imageshack.us/img436/2671/50bmghandgun21vr.jpg cheers, Mark

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #1: ACV And AVAD Yeah .... I like that. It's simpler, avoids the issue that AP cuts 3 DEF off a flak jacket and 23 DEF off Dr Destroyer's armour and also, IIRC, Find Weakness is going away, so it removes all of the "cut defences in half" stuff. It would also make Hardened more meaningful. cheers, Mark

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #1: ACV And AVAD This is extremely similar to what I suggested on the 6E thread dealing with attacks, so obviously, I'm all for it. The one thing I suggested that isn't here is simply making killing an advantage which goes against a less common defence (rDEF) . I think it would simplify things if we had a single attack power, the lethality of which could be tuned to taste. Still, an' all, while I was underwhelmed by the suggested changes to characteristics, what I have seen so far about powers building has revived my interest in 6E, so overall so far. cheers, Mark