Markdoc

Re: Social effects My own feeling was - and remains - that if the GM has set things up so poorly that the NPCs present the PCs with a social conflict that the players simply cannot accept, then providing the GM with tools where he can simply force the players to behave "appropriately" isn't gonna help. If the GM wants the PCs believe certain things (The Blood foundation does good works) then it should not be at all difficult to make the players believe that as well - or at least provide enough doubt, that the players don't have their PCs run shrieking at the name. In that case the second point (Brother Blood is the saviour of the world and the sacrfice of Starfire is a necessary evil) can be extrapolated from there. I've had players sacrifice their characters for "the greater good" or even "the party" before (Mike Surbrook - Susano on these boards - sacrificed his PC so the rest of the party could escape safely with Prince Heihachiro, for example), so that's not beyond the bounds of possibility at all. But forcing the PCs to work with the Blood foundation even though the players know it's a front? Forcing them to sacrifice a PC - or even an NPC -even though the players know it's not a good thing? And - worst of all - insisting the PCs do it "of their own volition"? These are ideas so terrible, any sensible GM would cringe at the concept. If you have player buy-in, these things are possible. But then you don't need to force them. If you don't have player buy-in, forcing them is a really, really, dreadful idea. A roleplaying game is a cooperative venture, not a novel. If the GM wants to control the actions of all parties involved, he should just write a novel. cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! Glad you like: I'm really behind writing this up - this adventure is from summer last year, and we are still playing every 2-3 weeks, so I have about a years' worth of games to write up - about 15-20 sessions I still have all the notes, sketches and maps, but they are all freehand ..... cheers, Mark

Re: Reincarnation Meta Concept You can skip the ethical aspects by stipulating that to accept an avatar a host has to be willing/compatible: in other words, an avatar can only graft itself to a compatible personality. In a that case, there'd be little to no appreciable change to personality. It'd just seem that the NPC finally got off his butt and decided to do something that previously he only talked about - or maybe even was starting to tackle, in a more limited way. In this case, it makes sense to carry over psych. lim.s, since they reflect the part of the nature of the host that makes it suitable. An example is Matt Wagner's "Hero series". The main character, who is essentially King Arthur reincarnated, has his own memories, quirks and personality, but he also has the "Arthur" personality. he's brave, loyal, impetuous, stubborn and always has to be in charge. He'll have those quirks, regardless of his reincarnation. One possibility is to allow the PC to choose how much carries over - he gets to keep a percentage of his points (above the starting level) equal to a percentage of the disad.s he transfers - but those points are fixed. In other words, if players are 100 +50 Disads, a PC at 225 points could opt to transfer 100% of his disadvantages, and start a new 100+125 character - but 125 of those points would be fixed. Or he could choose to carry over none of them and start completely new 100+disad.s character. In this case, death would be a minor inconvenience, since the player would always have the option to start a modified version of their current character - essentially they'd be playing avatars, not the physical character cheers, Mark

Re: Spellbusters One very simple approach, I used was for a "magic eater" character. He had just three powers. 1. An explosive, 0 END, persistent suppress (vs Magic) 2. An explosive 0 END, persistent NND (Defence was "not using magic") 3. An absorption that fed to multiple powers - namely, these three, with a reduced fade rate. All of them were "always on" which made him a bit of a mixed blessing Basically, around him, all magic powers get weaker, anyone using magic suffers some minor harm as their power is drained away - and the more magic he "eats", the stronger these effects get. Since the absorption feeds back on itself, there is, in theory no limit to how much magic he can "eat" - in practice, this meant that he could eventually suppress any magical effect, no matter how powerful. In combat, however, his powers were more restricted, since it took a long time to boost them up to a high level, so he reduced powers rather than canceling them outright. You might be able to get something useful out of this - maybe the absorption to power some of his other abilities, or the NND. cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! When the other ships arrive, they haul the cultists’ ship off the beach. Thana says that he has done his bit and says that he will leave now the players have found their prey. They try to persuade him to help them fight the cultists. He refuses saying he has shed enough blood already, but Adriana promptly claims the cultists’ ship as her “reward” for helping the PCs further – she also says she wants a share of any treasure they find. They grumble a bit but in the end let her have it. Khatz scries takes a sailor’s hat from the cultists’ ship to see their next destination – but he sees only a brief and terrifying glimpse of a huge mouth full of teeth. That does not encourage him. The PCs plus Adriana and a half dozen of her toughest and most trusted crew, begin immediately preparing to pursue the cultists. They arm themselves and Gen and the captured sailor move ahead to look at the path which runs into the forest alongside a little stream. It is thick and tangled. While Gen is looking for tracks, the captured sailor takes advantage of his distraction to flee up the path. The PCs give chase but he has a good head start and eventually Gen catches up with him by cutting through the jungle (GM’s note: he has environmental movement - forest) and corners him by a sheer cliff with a waterfall. There is a brief struggle and Gen is forced to stab the man – doing a lethal amount of damage. As the sailor dies, he gestures at Gen and says “It will be waiting for you...” When the rest catch up, they find that the path ends at the cliff-face, but there are handholds made with wooden wedges hammered into cracks in the rock. Wearily, they ascend the cliff. At the top, they find a pulley attached to a large tree and signs of an encampment – a clear trail runs off into the forest. On all sides they can see rugged terrain. Not only is the mountain covered in heavy forest, but its flanks are cut by many small streams, so that it is covered in steep-sided gorges. They follow the trail which winds among the largest trees and eventually come to a steep but narrow gorge which is crossed by a three-rope bridge. Khatz is unable to cross it because of his vertigo. The rest cross –though a bit uneasily – and make camp on the other side, since it is getting dark. Khatz manages to cross the gorge by clambering down into it and climbing the other side, though it takes him over an hour. That night on guard, Endre is on watch. It is very, very dark under the trees and she is glad when bright moonlight finds its way through the leaves. Then she thinks “That’s funny, the moon shouldn’t be full.” She wakens Dalarna who casts a spell to confirm that the moon is not full – and anyway the light they see is coming from the wrong direction to be the moon. They wake the others and they peer around – eventually Gen climbs a tree and sees a beam of light like a searchlight stabbing up into (or perhaps down from) the sky, but the bulk of the mountain prevents him from seeing where it touches land. The next day the party rises early and creeps along the trail, with Gen and Aquila out ahead as scouts. Here and there in the forest they see signs of ancient buildings – a tumbled wall, or a column of white stone wrapped about with tree roots. In places they see flagstones leading them to suspect the trail follows a prehistoric road. They climb up and down over several ridges and then the trail comes out onto an exposed ridge. Attached to a large tree is another three-rope bridge but this one swoops from the mountain they are on across a gorge hundreds of metres deep and nearly 100 metres wide, to a ridge on the flank of the smaller peak. Far below, they can hear water running and they can see all the way back to the coast on both sides of the island. On the side they did not visit, steep cliffs fall from the volcano into the sea. On the other side, they can see the three ships at anchor. Khatz takes one look at the fragile bridge and shudders. He can’t cross it, no matter how hard he tries. The rest of the party are forced to leave him behind and on the other side they find more evidence of ancient building. The bridge is fastened to the remnants of some large columns and gives access to an open space. Beyond that, wide steps, overgrown with leaf mould and scrub rise up through a high stone wall capped with heavy forest. Gripping their weapons, the party sets out. But as they ascend the stair, 4 armoured warriors step out to bar their way. At the same time two dozen archers reveal themselves along the top of the overgrown wall. One of the armigers at the top of the stairs demands their surrender. With only a two archers of their own, the party is trapped. To rush the stairs would mean dozens of archers could shoot them down in that narrow space – while to try and cross the bridge would leave them easy targets. And on either side of the ridge is a drop down hundreds of metres into space. And after only a brief debate, they drop their weapons. They have been captured by the cultists!

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Speaking of D&D characters, here's my current one: Myrial the Swordsage. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Art Thread My favorite line from that strip was: Slaine: "You go ahead - I have to sew my dwarf's mouth shut" Merlin: "We don't have time for that!" Slaine "Oh, it won't take long, I'm getting pretty good at it" Edit: for those who don't know the strip, Slaine has a foulmouthed lecherous cowardly dwarf (as in small person, not race) follower. cheers, Mark

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

Re: What kind of UFH

Re: Bones As Armour If you look at pacific island cultures that had little or no metal, you can get some ideas. For swords, they used bits of wood (large bones would suffice) with sharks teeth set in them to make nasty slashing weapons They made similar daggers, spears and clubs. Spears would be practical underwater, but I doubt swords or clubs would be (too much resistance). You might want to think about fighting styles: a grappling martial art built around daggers (immobilise your foe and stab him to death, break his limbs, or pop his eyeballs with your thumbs!) seems like a cool idea. Cartilage, no - it's tough, but squishy. Sharkskin would work, though. As far as decay, why not just go with it? Think of neolithic warlike tribes in places like New Guinea. They don't tend to stockpile weapons of war (weapons are personal, and such armour as there is, is made of biological materials like plant fibre, so it decays). When they go to war, it's a big ritual deal - part of which is making new weapons and armour. I kind of like the idea of the warriors engaging in a big ritual shark-hunt in order to obtain skin and teeth to make weapons before going to war Another possibility for amour is kelp. It's very tough and multiple woven layers would give you cloth-armour like protection: bulky, but effective, and flexible. cheers, Mark

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Quicktime on a mac plays VCDs, so yes. Yes, you can In fact we watched the first disc of my ancient VCD Lodoss War set last week while waiting for the rest of the gaming group to turn up. I'd forgotten how cheesy it is cheers, Mark

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day? That doesn't sound too far off, actually. I'd just make a couple of small changes. Drop the 6 hours thing, and instead work out how many hours are available for travel. So if you are traveling a good road with inns, you can walk 10 or even 12 hours a day, knowing that you can get food and a place to sleep at the end of the day. If you are traveling with plenty of food, that'll add to your encumbrance, but you don't need to forage - which means you need only take an hour or so to make camp and food. If you are foraging, you are going to need to spend half to 2/3rds of your time doing that instead of traveling. Most foraging people spend 3-8 hours a day doing so, depending on how easy food is to obtain. As for damage, I'd simply inflect LTE loss - when they run out of END, they start to take Long Term STUN loss and if they run out of STUN, they either collapse or make an EGO roll to keep going - at which point they start losing BOD. cheers, Mark

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day?

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day? Infantry speed. Well, there's plenty of information there. The infamous Ruck March that applicants to US rangers or US Navy SEALs have to pass is 18 miles with a 50 lb pack in 4.5 hours. Obviously, US special forces are made of much feebler stuff than your well-bred Greek boy! What's interesting is that when we look back across history, the numbers are pretty consistent. Lord Robert's famous forced march on Kabul - in which troops traveled as lightly as possible, using pack animals for their loads and which took no wheeled transport managed 15 miles a day, sometimes as much as 20. They lost men along the way - a few couldn't bear the pain and committed suicide, others dropped out and were never seen again. Hundreds of camels were bought on route to cary those who could no longer walk. That was double the standard day's march for the British army of the time. It's also the exact same speed that Alexander the Great and his troops managed on the famous forced march from Harran to the crossing of the Tigris, which outmaneuvered his enemies: 215 miles in 14 days, or about 15 miles a day. There's plenty of similar examples (Alexander's forced march to Gaugamela over 287 miles, took 21 days - also a speed of about 14 miles a day). Basically, over the last 3000 years the speed of infantry marching on foot without wagons has topped out at 15 miles a day - 20 on a really good day, and that's a punishing regimen that only the best manage. More normal speeds for large groups of men are about half that. Soldiers on foot can manage better, over short periods. Stonewall Jackson's famous forced march to Mannassas managed 54 miles over 2 days - a pretty respectable 26 miles a day, but for a much short period than Lord Robert's troops. He was also marching around the enemy's flank and not expecting much combat - which is probably a good thing. As Grant said in his memoirs (chapter 28) "I did not believe this possible because of the distance and the condition of the roads, which was bad; besides, troops after a forced march of twenty miles are not in a good condition for fighting" This is on the same scale as the famous light infantry march to Talavera (56 miles in just under two days) during the Peninsula wars, or General mile's forced march in the capture of Geronimo. That suggests that light order soldiers - or soldiers in smaller groups - can manage 25-30 miles a day and as much as 50 if they are not carrying much and really push it to the limit of human endurance, but that's not a speed that can be sustained.

Re: Odd Swords -- Real or Fantasy? That's because of what you wrote in your first paragraph - a Xiphos is just a short stabbing sword (there's disagreement on what the name means because it's derived from pre-attic greek: most scholars settle on "stabbing" or "penetrating". The blade can be lots of different shapes. The shape of blade you are referring to is found in all kinds of swords and is generally referred to as a "leaf blade" - you find it in early spanish swords (Pugio) and celtic swords as well. Although the way the weigh was distributed towards the tip makes it look like it'd be good for chopping, there is some debate about this - a lot of historians think that the leaf shape was designed to make "drawing cuts" easier - a slicing type of cut that goes far deeper than a simple chop - but which isn't much use against armour. cheers, Mark

Re: Odd Swords -- Real or Fantasy? Yeah, but Oakeshott is one of the last of those compulsive victorians who gave us the "classify and fix the names of things" meme. The breadth of his knowledge and the depth of his research cannot be doubted. He is still frequently cited, by scholars in medieval and feudal archeology. At the same time, his classification systems today are considered a bit laughable - the staff archeologists at the National museum here, which hold one of the world's largest collection of viking swords have removed the old Oakeshott classifications from their catalogue cards, describing them as "at best uninformative, at worst misleading" - although another, in an unguarded remark to me called them "ren fantasi" - "pure fantasy". By classing two swords as - for example - "Petersen G" you give the impression that they are somehow related, even though they might come from completely different areas and be produced two hundred years apart by smiths who knew nothing of each other's work. cheers, Mark

Re: UFH: The Sixth Sun setting (Pulp Hero style) And saw himself as a proud crusader and defender of christianity, I know. However, there were a few fruitcakes in the Nazi party, especially in the early days who were interested in Occultism (it was actually not an uncommon interest in the 20's and 30's). Also the Prussians frequently used early German imagery in building a national identity* and the Nazis took that over. These days, people recall the Teutonic tribe images and forget that Charlemagne, Barbarossa and the Teutonic knights were more frequently used. That image of Nazi Occultists has been cemented by Indiana Jones. Still, for a pulp/fantasy hybrid, I'd go with it anyway. Nazis make good villains. Nazis intent on stealing the spear of Odin and using it in a new great war, make great villains. cheers, Mark *An important element in Jugendstil - and one used actually all over Europe, not just in Germany.

Re: Good resource for travel distances/day? Not without reason was Herodotus nicknamed "Father of Lies". Cheers

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Yep. I saw it in the theatre too, and when I came out I thought, "You know that was just a perfectly made movie". Everything clicked, all the way through. cheers, Mark

Re: Ancient Weapons and Armor

Re: Odd Swords -- Real or Fantasy? The other possibility, often overlooked, is actually one of the most basic of weapons - the spear. A long-bladed spear is an excellent weapon for a smaller fighter, because it gives reach, and also because its length gives leverage (increasing the amount of damage you can do while slashing). You can use the haft to deliver non-killing blows or to trip and confuse your opponent. Even in a country as addicted to swords as Japan, during the age of war, the spear was the battlefield weapon par excellence. It's not an "exotic" weapon per se, but it is relatively exotic in fantasy fiction because heroes tend to have swords, really big axes or funky chain weapons. It does have the drawback of being largish. cheers, Mark

Re: Surprisingly Effective Builds?

Re: Surprisingly Effective Builds? I had a time-manipulating character inspired by a bad guy from Alpha Flight who could call copies of himself back from the near future. That gave him some amusing precognitive powers - it also gave him the ability to boost his SPD and Duplicate. Otherwise, he was a fairly weak martial artist, but for one turn he could be SPD12 and there were 16 of him. He got by the GM without problem because his attacks and defences were so low, and his precognitive powers very limited. It's true he was pretty much helpless against Bricks, but against almost every other archetype he simply swamped them in a hail of puny little fists. cheers, Mark