SSgt Baloo

Re: A couple of brain cells connected... Your point is valid, but nit-picky details like that don't appeal to anyone but gun-geeks like you and me. The snaphaunce was an early form of what became the flintlock, and the difference between the two lies mostly in construction details rather than operating principles. Relevant links: Web article: Period Firearms Web article: Snaphaunce Weapons Wikipedia article: Snaplock Wikipedia article: Miquelet Wikipedia article: Snaphance Wikipedia article: Doglock Wikipedia article: Flintlock In general, there are three methods of ignition prior to the invention of percussion ignition: You light the powder charge with a smoldering wick (match). You light the powder charge with a mechanism that has to be wound with a key and strikes sparks from a mineral (iron pyrite) when the striker wheel turns. You light the powder charge with sparks struck from a flint against a rough surface. For most people, that's all the complexity they need (at least when creating firearms for a fantasy campaign). Of course, magical "gunpowder substitutes" might have different means of actuation. Maybe there's a small speaker-tube on the weapon so the shooter's voice can give the command for the powder to do it's thing. Maybe a different chemical is introduced to the charge to set it off. Perhaps no powder is involved, but bullets are magically empowered to fling themselves from the confines of the weapon's barrel under the right circumstances. Maybe a tiny (but very, very tough) imp sits in the breech of the barrel with a box of even tinier matches and lights the powder charge when commanded to?

Re: How can you make the stone age cool? I think a few concepts could be "benchmarked" from Civ II, like the technology tree (you need to know certain things before you can "discover" certain other things, etc.) A game of ice-age hunter-gatherers seeking more productive hunting/gathering grounds when the ice sheets advance would be quite different from a village society sending out pioneers to find suitable sites for colonies. A campaign about a stone-age city-state might revolve around internal politics, threats from other city-states, or overpopulation requiring the PCs to lead settlers to a new site for a new city. Stealing Discovering or inventing new technologies might be the focus of some campaigns. Has anyone had a campaign where inventing new technology was the focus? How did you handle the process? Would the quest for more/better materials to craft weapons, tools and clothing be the focus of a campaign? How about trading? Even prehistoric peoples ranged far and wide to exchange things they had in abundance for things they didn't have at all, be it obsidian or flint for arrowheads, cloth woven from plant or animal fibers, finely-crafted items such as bone or horn needles, beads, shells, etc, or resources such as natural dyes and pigments. Sure, here it's just dirt, but three days east, the Og-people will give [prehistoric unit-of-measure] hides for [different prehistoric unit-of-measure] the stuff. The information in this thread is helping a lot. Let's keep brainstorming.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares CSI: The Cereal Killers This week: The Mysterious disappearance of Cap'n Crunch! Next week: Get Lucky! [And so on.]

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Doctor Who: The End of Time (David Tennant's final episode.) I don't recognize the new actor portraying the regenerated Doctor. DT Did a great job. Hopefully the new guy can fill his shoes. Demons: Apparently this is BBC's take on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but with a male protagonist. The New Adventures of Superman: I remember watching this when I was a kid. In one episode, one of the monsters is a giant lobster. Superman: Great Suns, it's a giant lobster! Me, watching the show: Damn! There's never a giant pot of boiling water handy when you need one! Good times.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Several episodes of Twilight Zone (they were having a marathon on the SyFy channel). Plus I watched half of 10,000 BC (I'll watch the rest of it tonight). Did I say I had weird but entertaining dreams? Let's just assume that anytime I post, it's pretty much a given.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos I thought pretty-much the same when I saw the movie.

Re: Jokes Dammit! That's the word! I'd rep you but I gotta spread some first.

Re: How can you make the stone age cool? ...So how about it? What kinds of scenarios and campaigns can you do for a stone-age setting? Having watched (part) of 10KBC, I imagine that Shamans would have little in the way of offensive magic, except maybe if they could control a nearby animal to defend them or attack an enemy. Stone weapons would probably require some maintenance after use. Stone spearpoints would tend to break off in wounds, but I imagine bludgeons (rock-on-end-of-stick-type clubs, etc.) would be resistant to breaking when used. Keep in mind that the Aztecs had "swords" (really just flat clubs) edged with obsidian blades (see below). In a world without much in the way of armor (hides, animal skins, etc.) any killing attack is extremely dangerous. One way of passing information from one generation to the next before writing would have been to make a chant or song with all the information contained in the lyrics. Isn't that how the Vikings kept their culture and laws stable for centuries? I've noticed that some people have suggested that our stone-age ancestors weren't "smart enough" to invent the wheel, create fire, etc. Actually, they did. Try inventing something no-one ever thought of before you sometime. The only reason progress was slow was that there weren't more people sharing information freely. Who knows how many "modern" inventions were thought of and discarded because materials and technology weren't available? Don't discount the smarts of stone-age people.

Re: But wait! There's more!!

Re: Nova? No clue. If it was, the word hasn't leaked onto the internet news sources yet.

Re: How can you make the stone age cool?

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. I heard the following on a call-in radio program this morning. A caller told about his grandfather, who said: "It's the friction between minds that strikes the spark of truth."

Re: Waking up with not-so-super powers I hear ya, brother! Spare Change Man would like to team up with Hot Coffee Man. He'd find the money, then they could go for coffee that stayed warm to the last drop! Now that's a power with real utility! Somebody like that guy could clear up a lot of things. We'd finally find out where all those lost socks go when they disappear from the dryer. We could finally determine where Jimmy Hoffa was buried and he could get rich finding the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine.

Re: How can you make the stone age cool? I watched part of Birth of Civilization, recorded off National Geographic Television. I'll watch the rest tonight, but it's giving me some idea about how prehistoric people lived, and why it isn't necessarily a roleplaying desert of a setting.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? I watched part of Birth of Civilization, recorded off National Geographic Television. Pretty good and a fortuitous find, given that I recently started a thread about how to do Stone Age Hero. I'll watch the rest tonight.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Conan the Destroyer and Warriors of Virtue. Another night of bizarrely entertaining dreams.

Re: Waking up with not-so-super powers

Re: Hero System Good Idea/Bad Idea...

Lets face it, apart from The Flintstones, most of us just can't imagine a "fun" stone-age setting. What kind of features would your stone-age setting have to make it fun and gameable? Settings I might suggest: One Million BC Heroes (dinosaurs coexisting with humans) Cave Man Heroes (like One Million BC Heroes, but with a comedic slant) Native Peoples Hero (your stone-age society is being colonized by people with superior technology) Any of the above could include shamanistic magic of one sort or another. How would that work? Anyone else?

One more thing... Astra 400 I used to own one of these. It was kind of Buck-Rogerish-looking but it was difficult to find 9x23mm ammunition, though it could fire 9x19mm (parabellum) rounds, it didn't cycle reliably with the shorter round.

But wait! There's more!! Russian Bizon 9mm Helical-Feed SMG The Rhodesian Uzi

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Steampunk Raygun Snowball blaster An FN bullpup in 5.56

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Actually, it's just a screwdriver. Crack Suicide Squad Tank Dunno if we've seen this before...

Re: Jokes Thank you! He'll be here all week! Try the veal.