Old Man

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Just finished All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, which is neither fantasy nor scifi, but makes an excellent Christmas read. A gripping, if bleak, tale. I found the ending to be a little weak, but that's because there is no resolution to the cause of the bleakness. Otherwise, highly recommended.

Re: Fantasy or Pulp? Yes, but while fantasy <> pulp, much fantasy is pulp. Conan, obviously. Elric to a lesser extent. Pulp similarly includes space opera (Flash Gordon) and costumed superheroes (Phantom). Its epicenter would be the action hero/adventure genre cf. Lost World, set in the '30s. But it doesn't have to be. Basically, if one is speaking of a pulp genre, then that's the '30s adventure stuff--Rocketeer, Indiana Jones, etc. But I would consider that to be a subset of pulp fiction, which includes sword & sorcery, vigilante heroes, and pulp sf.

Re: A couple of brain cells connected... Well, game balance isn't really an issue, since in Hero you can define guns however you want (within reason). It becomes a question of player perception of setting. Guns in Iron Kingdoms are fine. Guns in Middle Earth, not so much.

Re: What are the chances of multiple sentient races to evolve/be created on one world In mythology, giants/titans come first, then elves/dwarves (which are often the same thing), then men.

Re: Instantaneous Communications plus Time Dilation Equals ??? Actually it's exactly the same phenomenon. If we were discussing light, then the viewers would perceive light of different colors (assuming a really fast train). What color is the light in "reality"?

Re: A couple of brain cells connected... Ah. Sorry, I thought you were asking a genre question, not a mechanics one. Your writeups are good, except that I'm not sure I would bother using either one. The inaccuracy and extreme reload times make them uncompetitive with other missile weapon types. I'd actually lose the inaccuracy, since firearms were supposed to be easier to aim than bows, and add the usual armor piercing (for fantasy) and +2 stun multiple. I'd replace the inaccuracy and reduced by range with a steep range mod penalty. I'd expect the handgun at least to be a pretty fearsome close range ranged weapon. You could even justify raising the damage... Most flintlocks, iirc, were .68 caliber or greater.

Re: What are the chances of multiple sentient races to evolve/be created on one world These are from wikipedia so they must be true: Wolfdogs are fully fertile; dogs are classified as a subspecies of wolf. Dog-coyote and dog-jackal hybrids are less fertile. Male ligers are sterile, but female ones are often fertile. Same goes for tigons. Ligers are not really viable hybrids as their parents would never mate in the wild, and because they must generally be delivered by caesarian. Mules and hinnies are usually sterile, as are zebra-donkey hybrids. All are members of the same genus, but are separate species.

Re: Is "ether" real? I could use both of those in my life, that's for damn sure. Ether and superrelativity both sound a lot better than timecube.

Re: Fantasy or Pulp? It seems to me, based on the discussion at hand, that pulp isn't a genre so much as a style. Pulp is to speculative fiction what action movies are to film. It tends to have a single strong character, a relatively simple plot, and in general be a little over the top.

Re: A couple of brain cells connected... The "swashbuckling" bit comes from the fact that most games are based on interesting fiction. Rare is the fantasy fiction that includes gunpowder weapons that is still in a medieval or Middle-Earth-like setting. I'm sure there are exceptions, but as I explained above, they are very rare.

Re: A couple of brain cells connected... No, but it does mean it has technology. Including gunpowder weapons in your fantasy campaign automatically gives it a Renaissance/Musketeer "feel" that doesn't play well with the typical elf-wizard-dragon tropes. There can be exceptions*, but it's hard to avoid this problem unless you treat guns as a kind of magic--and then why have them? *Castle Falkenstein and Naomi Novik's books are the best exceptions I can think of. Still, the former seems closer to steampunk and the latter to, I guess, urban fantasy.

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. That reminds me of one from before the holiday program that I forgot about. "I don't like wearing this on my head." "But it's part of your shepherd costume." "I don't want to wear a shepherd costume! I want to be a Transformer!" "You know, that would be totally awesome, but this is for Christmas, so boys have to be shepherds and girls have to be angels. And you are no angel." "I still don't want to be a shepherd." (sigh) "You get to carry a stick." "Ooh! Ooh!"

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. Heh, at least their kid sang. Mine didn't even try.

Re: What are the chances of multiple sentient races to evolve/be created on one world I can think of mechanisms by which the existence of one intelligent species might encourage the development of others. Competition with a rival sentient species could spur increased intelligence in one's own. Or a symbiotic relationship, such as that between humans and dogs, could foster the development of the lesser species' intelligence over time. This is in addition to outright uplift via breeding, magical, or technological means.

Re: If you Had to Pick, ONE (already) Setting, to Run in, What is it? I'd say Alita, but I consider that to be more cyberpunk than space. I'd have to go with Star Wars, I guess, but in the more interesting Clone Wars era.

Re: Fantasy Hero wolf write-up needed! But boy does it stink when it does.

Re: Blocking and relative strengths I find it odd that the players need the encouragement, frankly. IME Fantasy Hero combat favors wolfpacking and conservative use of levels and maneuvers, if not outright stalling.

Re: Fantasy Hero wolf write-up needed! This is for a largish direwolf... its regular wolf minions would have -4 STR/CON/BODY and maybe higher DEX. 15" running STR 18 DEX 15 CON 18 BODY 16 INT 10 EGO 18 PRE 20 COM 10 PD 5 ED 4 SPD 3 REC 8 END 40 STUN 40 +3d6 PRE attack (howl/growl) 1.5d6 HKA w/ reduced penetration, piercing (1d6+1/1d6+1 w/ STR) 4d6 RKA AOE cone (breath weapon-fire and brimstone) (just seeing if you're paying attention)

Re: Blocking and relative strengths To add more complexity, I can see this being heavily dependent on the weapon being blocked. A sword is hard to block barehanded; a baseball bat less so. It also matters if the sword is being swung or thrust. Anyway as I said earlier the whole block/parry/dodge/damage shield/dive for cover issue quickly develops into a rabbit hole leading to a Wonderland of complexity and rules debate, which is why we mostly played the game as written.

Re: The cranky thread It doesn't matter which one of those I use, because when I do, it's dripping with sarcasm.

Re: The cranky thread

Re: Blocking and relative strengths I had no idea that the -1 OCV "parry" house rule was so prevalent. That's what we always used. In real combat, of course, one rarely sees pure blocks or pure dodges; the former are too risky/painful and the latter are too hard. Most defensive moves are combination parry/dodges. But I was too lazy to attempt to create a full-spectrum replacement for block, dodge, and dive for cover, so we just used the -1 thing. Even so, parrying is real easy with a large shield.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Judging by the reactions I have received over the years, my most valuable contribution to these forums is... my .sig.

Re: The cranky thread You could always come and visit. I'm probably not contagious anymore.

Re: The cranky thread I think it got clear down into the high 60s here last night.