Scott Ruggels

I would have to agree about the bizarre influence of RT, but also more importantly Metacritic, Much as it has kind of warped the Video Game Industry, it's also having something of an influence on films as well. I believe the influence is outsized, as is RT.

In our version of the adventure, my Character, a super High Charisma Dragon Disciple (Bronze), Flirted shamelessly with the young Crystal Dragon for about a half hour, much to the amusement and cat calls from the other players, and got the Crystal, by basically buying it off of her (He's rich). Now that he can BE a dragon, he can't return, but won't, as he is now betrothed to another... *sniff* She was so pretty, though.

You don't mean Rocky Russo's "Mustangs & Messerschmitts", do you? I loved that game, but flight sims are now on computer these days, and pretty capable. ?

Assumption clash, especially inter-generational assumption clash is the basis for most arguements, in this case.

Hat's off, man. Tour De Force typing job. and as one who's early memory included Air Raid Sirens the the Casualties read off on the Huntley/ Brinkley Report over Mom's dinner, and in ROTC in 1982-84 (Until I flunked out of college). The Cold War was omnipresent back then.

Well since some folks seemed interested, I will be starting a Space Campaign, upon the completion of the current, Saturday morning Pathfinder game. I thought I would give the GM a break. I presented three options , and the one that got the most strong positive reaction was the high concept of, “Kind of like the Expanse, no FTL, no Aliens, takes place in the Solar system.” (The other ones were, a Flintlocks and Magic FH game of Continental exploration, and Colonization, and Pulp 1920’s taking place in the Far East). What I am hoping to build is a plausible extrapolation of future trends, based on an old Analog article about historical cycles (measured against the Idea of Asimov’s Psychohistory). And a little bit of Strauss & Howe’s “Generations”. The Background is a Solar System in the middle of a “Gold Rush”, where folks are looking to make their claim, and new large corporations mine the Jovian moons and larger asteroids for elements to be fabricated in orbital facility, Where the first O’Niel cyphers have just been completed, and are being set up as farms, to feed a hungry Solar System, where Robots are as smart as a Dog, but have been made to perform many many tasks. The singularity has not occurred yet, but Genetic engineering is common. The downside is that Earth is as fragmented as much as it is now, if not more so. The U.S. and China had a war, and the first meteoriodal weapons were used. There is no world government, and even the US has fragmented following the war, and the only reason the follow states are a factor, is because of the Space billionaires, and a generous legal and financial climate. Space itself is lawless, and enforcement of rules only to as far as Station Security can shoot. Most stations have a closed intranet, because of early war cyber hacking killed lots of peoples. Most people subscribe to the saying, “Keep your politics on Earth (or Mars, or any other moon)”, but people will be people, especially the ones who have an axe to grind. The Earth is Disunited, Mars, it it’s own country, and those moons without sizable populations are property of some company or other. Even small asteroids, smaller than the ship that claimed it, can be property, to be resold, or melted and reformed into some utopian commune, avoided by people that prefer to interact with others that shower. Said communes, micro colonies, company stations, lonely research outpost, and independent homesteads on Mars, are all out there, pursuing their own interest, as do the shadows of various Earthside organizations, looking to raise funds, influence alliances, or attack opponents in this lawless frontier. If if this sounds interesting, I could use a bit of help from folks here, as I am math-tarred, and am not as up to speed on the mechanics and physics as I used to be. I would gladly listen to interesting ideas for NPCs, Small Organizations, and neat science ideas to exploit. The tone of the campaign is gritty, but somewhat optimistic, if you aren’t on Earth, and the power lever is Heroic. Hit locations will be used, and there is a possibility of character death or even TPK. In system travel uses the Rosenstein Drive, using Helium 3 scraped off the surface on The Moon, so gas may be cheap, but a trip from Earth to Pluto will still take months. To begin with ship travel will be by commercial carrier. Otherwise, this will be an open sandbox game. Thoughts?

There is an argument that the westerns since the 90’s aren’t “True Westerns”. because the morality is blurred or inverted, or subverted. They are still “Westerns due to the environments, props and costumes, but the rise of the Psychological Western, reflected the self doubt the country during the late 60’, through to the first gas crisis. I Western production was halted during the Malaise Era it seemed, and all characters other than the Star Wars cast were self doubting if not heavily neurotic. The doubt about the VietnNam war carried through to the achievement of its Manifest Destiny 80 years earlier. (See:Little Big Man) Stories like “True Westerns can only survive in an optimistic, and guilt free culture. We don’t have that any more. Art is a reflection of the life and times they were created in, and Pulp was a reflection of the early to mid 20th Century. A friend said that genres of popular music are only relevant as long as there were s an audience willing to pay for it.

Yes! Thank you! Sandbox is what I want.

Whole hearted agreement! One of the reasons I eschew “High Narrative “ System’s is exactly this. That uncertainty of outcome, starting at the PC decision, down to combat, is what , to me, give a campaign a feeling of a time and place, rather than just a shared story. Actions have consequences, and no one should have script immunity IMO.

I’ve always said, “Never marry outside of the hobby!” ? In my case my time has been freed up due to me being forcibly medically retired, (why Innever posted from May to September) so I can GM again. As for players, I am just recruiting the Long Term group that will soon wrap up the Pathfinder campaign. Same day, same players, but giving the GM of that one a well deserved rest.

I am curious, as to why GMing takes so much time? Sure there is prep work, but I tend to feel that being a GM< is like being a CG animator (My former occupation), in that a lot of time in the prep and set up (Building and painting the model, and then rigging it), but the actual running, (animation) doesn't take a lot of extra time? in thed Game sense, it would be prep time in making or collecting maps, writing the background, and some package deals, and some briefly written "enemies". Now I might have some advantages in that I can draw, so most NPCS got a head shot portrait (In pencil or Pen, depending on the time frame), and many of these would fit into already pre arrainged templates (That prep work again). So the set up can be intimidating, I think once you have players interacting with the world, that the work actually becomes easier between games as you just make some notes, and jot down a few things during your lunch break. It;s the way I ran FH for years.

Worked fine in 3rd edition HERO as a Skirmish game. That's how we sort of played the combats out in some of the "Mercenary based" Espionage, and Danger International games. Only about 20 counters in the board, and only 6-8 PCs. Worked fine, and got very detailed. We did the same in a Military based star hero campaign as well. Equipment was different, but pretty much base, stock HERO. Not familiar with 4th and beyond. But i would assume it's the same. Never really did any Mass combats in HERO though, but I am used to complex situations in war games like all the 15mm Napoleonics I used to play in High school. Donald Featherstone's Rules might help for hints on medium and small unit engagements.

Tell me more?

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-shows-off-spacexs-massive-starship-test-rocket-2019-01-10 After a successful Falcon 9 launch, Papa Elon teases his next big project, with an image of his sub-orbital test vehicle.

I do the multi-colored dice thing, exactly as you propose. Red for damage, black for hit location, and green for attack rolls. Didn’t roll knock ack, as it’s not common in FH games, but does come up when fighting against a Giant, Dragon, or some other large scale monster.

Oh I expect some package deals to cost something, depending, but some may be nearly zero points and paid for by disads and stat modifications, I am defiantly breaking out anatomical packages, from cultural and professional packages. In my opinion, of being a human is free, then beings something else is mostly free as well, but I have to get into actually constructing the packages to see what the costs actually are. Unlike drawing, character building in Hero was never my strong suit. (And if 6ed is a requirement, I will definitely need outside assistance, as I do not Know it. )

A round up of 2018’s Space News: https://www.geekwire.com/2018/year-space-falcon-heavys-first-flight-solar-systems-farthest-frontier/

I will have to find a copy of Mythic Raced, your get a feeling it’s n how they write thing up. As for the package bonus,I disagree. For me, they serve as a template, giving members of that race a common baseline, and the bonus works well for a mathtarded GM like me.

Well depending on tone,’with one end being flashy, body hugging, costumes, and the other end of the scale being Pattern 1937 Battle Dress, balaclavas, and unusual shoulder tabs, you could use Code names for the supers?

He’s just a misunderstood radical environmentalist.

I used to. I even had a subscription.

Saw it, liked it. Impressive visuals, and I do think it is a precursor to Major projects adopting anNon Photorealistic Render (NPR) technique, as then Pixar softnshading it getting passe’ The film worked on many levels, and Inwould highly recommend it to any Marvel fan.

This weapon was the height of technological progress, Bach when Espionage, and Danger International were things. I knew about the weapon, but my assumptions about its eventual non adoption in1989, were wrong. I had assumed it was propellant difficulties, like the Hughes Caseless riflemof 1969. Though propellant issues were a factor in the delay of this weapon, they were solved by the formal acceptance of the weapon into Bundeswehr service, acceptance, but not adoption.

Well yeah. I suppose I was spoiled by LDG's Danger International, and FH games, in that we DID have to plan and war game out the various encounters, and were thick tactical puzzles that did allow for a high level of role play. But I think, is that I really dislike (and feel ripped off by) a high level of abstraction. This is why I avoid Low crunch RPGs.

The problem I have with narrative resolutions, is the loss of agency. This may be the hair splitting issue that makes Fantasy the top RPG background. I love hard science fiction to read and watch, which is why I wanted to try it as an RPG, but the space travel issue raises its head. Unlike you, I would rather War game out resolutions than have it resolved with a couple of die rolls, and a description. But then, that’s me. For Fantasy, ones choices are wider, and in Pathfinder and 5e, they have a rule and a die roll for everything, so it’s more granular, and with numerous die rolls by the player, that player feels more in control of their destiny, regardless of what may be really going on.