Trencher

Re: Roman Martial Art, comments please

 

They were not afraid of putting themselves in harms way to finish of their enemy. I would give them an - in dcv manuver to simulate that.

Re: Hitman: Your Next DC Campaign!

 

Not me.

The whole murder for hire thing.. It just seems so inpersonal.

Re: Hitman: Your Next DC Campaign!

 

Um...it's a joke. "Hitman" was a DC comic a while back.

I read one of those it was the one with the green lantern crossover. Pretty dull stuff but I have never been a fan of the cool hitman type of comics.

Re: Hitman: Your Next DC Campaign!

 

DC as in Dark Champions... as in' date=' this website would be exactly the kind of thing a group of Player Character assassins would create to promote themselves.[/quote']

Well I am curious how a campain with a group of hitmen (women?) would work. Once in a shadow run campain one of the players ran a hitman, and coming up with interesting adventures for that character was very difficult.

Re: Hitman: Your Next DC Campaign!

 

What do you mean?

Another thing how is this going to be the next dc campain?

Re: DEX is used too much

 

Most campains have a maximum on how much your total cv can be. That is why the players in my campain always bought dex instead of skill levels.

Re: DEX is used too much

 

I have split dex into agility for dcv and dexterity for ocv in my houseruled campain. The cost remains the same for both dex and agi. It works because it makes charcters more expensive and because it creates more diversety.

Re: Ultra Low Start Campaign

 

Also when you start out low xp and equipment gets much more valuable. In one warhammer game I played in (with hero rules) I played a zelot built on ten points plus disadvateges. he changed from adventure to adventure and then he found a platemail and suddenly he was like ten times as though as before.

It was fun and I suport your idea. But be prepared for sudden changes in playercharacters power level.

Re: Robbers on the Road

 

However... Cyril could be the kind of paladin who runs both the princess and the driver through with his longsword in order to protect her chastity.

It is funny because it is true!

Re: Robbers on the Road

 

Well the GM who started this thread did say that his players fought to the death all the time. I do not think that capturing player-characters is a good idea. Or atleast if the players are going to get smacked around let them be smacked around by a deadly enemy like the empire in starwars. Not bandits. Being heroic is not winning all the time but it is not about surrendering either. It is about fighting and fighting and combat in the hero system is much more dramatic and filled with a much greater range of strategic choices than dnd. And it seems to me that it is dnd you are talking about here when you say that combat is boring. Combat in hero is not boring. Fighting back when someone try to take your stuff is neither unreasonable or dnd'ish.

I am not going to blame anyone for letting their player-characters run like hell if they encounter bandits, nor will I blame them for surrendering their stuff. But there is no way in hell I am going to try to vilify them for fighting either. A GM must remain impartial.

Re: Robbers on the Road

 

In a high-fantasy setting where magic is a powerful form of combat, there's no reason why the bandits wouldn't have magic, or try to hire/retain someone who did... especially since even a small display of magic is going to be more intimidating than a few clubs and slings.

Well that be as it may, banditry is most often last resort and a mage have other options a LOT of more options than your average dirt-poor peasant or soldier. Magic wielders are not just walking pieces of artillery. Unless almost everyone has access to magic the average encounter should be magic free. At the very least a bandit gang which has access to a mage should be renowned far and wide and the fact that they have a mage on their side should be the "theme" of the gang.

Re: Robbers on the Road

 

Ah - some come from the school of thought that people in roleplaying games should be as well rounded and three dimensional as they are in real life.

I would hope so

And the world should behave in a non-narrative' date=' but realistic way. [/quote'] Bandits ganging up twenty to one is realistic, pesant who become bandits because of bad harvest is realistic. Bandits being built on fifty point + is not in my opinion.

However, some play fantasy games just like the superhero genre - everything is black/white and good/evil. There are no shades of grey, the PCs will always win (eventually) and the role of the PC is to be the centre of any historical event.

I think you do make a disservice to the superhero genre here.

I certainly do not want things to be black and white, how about grey and black? I just don’t want to advice the GM here to create a scenario where the players are attacked by people who are their moral and combative superior. You might end up with the players resigning themselves to accepting the situation and just give the bandits their stuff and a pat on the back.

If the average pc group is facing twenty times as many opponents as themselves, who all are handy with the bow and know the terrain then the pc's "will not always win" But their death will be heroic!

There are many variations on style. Just bear that in mind.

That is why I posted here, to bring some variation.

I find the use of the word "heroic" in the various rulebooks to be somewhat misleading in this regard. Roleplaying games don't need heroes, they just need people.

This is very true. But if your players always fight to the death then it is obvious that they want to be heroes. Many players I have met like kicking bandit ass more than bearing witness to the mysterious and powerful dark hero bandit fulfilling his destiny. Also many players like face to face drama and conflict rather than being teached a lesson in humility by their superiors.

Re: Robbers on the Road

 

Rollo Gangeren was such a successful bandit in France (preying on merchant ships as well as overland transport) that the king eventually made a treaty with him and he became a duke...

 

 

Old Dragfoot is a good example. That is what nobility is, bandits in fancy clothes. The reason I think that bandits has been seen as merchant robbers before extortionists is because the merchants have more influence and can tell of their plight to a larger number of ears. I never meant to say that merchants were not targets for bandits at all just rarely, but I wanted to emphasize the fact that bandits have a life in between caravans. And they have to eat.

Re: Robbers on the Road

 

I think if you want to rely on history, you'll need to do a bit of reading up - bandits did - historically - do many things: you even allude to this yourself.

 

Bandits most certainly preyed on merchants (as well as anybody else).

 

But for the most part they did prey upon ordenary pesant folk.

Re: Robbers on the Road

 

In my campaign I take a more realistic aproach and use bandits as they were in history. First off bandits rarely prey on the merchants unless they are paid to do it by someone else. Or they are organized enough to have an reliable fence so they can get rid of the stolen goods without giving themselves up.

Bandits are _not_ master combatants, they don't make a living of killing people they make a living of intimidating people. In particular pesants. The reason for this is that there were not enough merchants to keep a bandit going. You have to prey on the commoners if you are going to live like a bandit.

As far as combat tactics go bandits should be not bright, but pragmatic. Don't go one one go five to one or most likely ten to one. If you surround a man with twenty of your buddies he is going to give his stuff without a fight but if you and your highly trained friend try to shake him down he might fight back. Sooner or later one of the marks is going to get lucky no matter how good you are.

Last and this is the most important part: Bandits was almost never bandits first. They almost always had a primary profession and used banditry to get some quick cash.

Different group makes different bandits.

Pesants: These guys are handy with a bow and know the local terrain as the back of their hand. If they are lucky the whole village can be in on it and that gives them alibi if needed.

Soldiers/deserters: Soldiers who where on foreign ground in medieval times did not hesitate to do a little looting on the side even if the nobles (might) frown upon such practice, (less taxes for them). Deserters makes exelent brigands or robbers and might be very well armed and trained and can give the most powerful group (of normals) a run for their money.

Nobles: Bored nobles can create a secret identity for themselves and go on looting travelers. They look primevally for thrills not money. They might even have a reputation. "Don't travel in the forest at night sir. the Beige bandit is about tonight"

Pilgrims: Pilgrims often resorted to banditry in medieval times and in turn also was preyed upon by other bandits, however you could say that the bandit in question was not really pious and that the pilgrim suit was a disguise. If a whole religion go corrupt then you could use something like the whitecloacks from the wheel of time series. They were bandits true and true.

Finally I would advice you to not use magicians in your bandit group. Nothing ruins the mystery of magic as much as a couple of magic users in a bandit group. Unless offcourse he/her is a leader of some kind there would be very little reason for a mage to hang out with bandits, he could earn more money doing tricks on the market place.

And one final thing. Bandits are the scum of the earth in my campaign and the players like that, even if you choose to go with the noble protector who just happen to steal a little type of bandit you should throw in some real scumbags just to make the nice bandit look good.

Re: Robbers on the Road

 

What kind of story is that?

An heroic one.

Re: "Fantasy" withoiut Magic

 

Well if you say you are going to run a fantasy campain then it will be boring without -some- type of magic.

Offcourse it possible to run a fun game during the crusades but it is not fantasy.

Let me ask you a question: How do you define fantasy?

Starwars: a new hope is fantasy because of the force. Babylon five is not fantasy even thoug it got psycher's.

Re: Help please.

 

You are thinking about this in a wrong way. Instead of thinking about what kind of power you have you must figure out what and EVERYTHING you can do with it.

Do you know what your opponent is going to do next? Precog. Does this make you a better fighter? Skill levels by the bucketload. Does it make you impossible to surprise? Danger sense. And so on.

The whole read opponents mind is just a special effect.

Re: "Fantasy" withoiut Magic

 

Is it possible to use the standard fantasy tropes in a world with no magic?

You can use elements of fantasy in any genre, but it is not fantasy unless it has magic.

If magic is defined as "any action that violates the laws of cuase and effect", then magic is logically contradictory and therefore CANNOT exist. most fnantasy GMs don;t enforce a ligikcal cosmos, but if you did then there can;t be real magic.

I don't define magic that way. Magic ranges from demon texts to the "force". Magic is a mysterious power that transcends natural laws they do not break them. A logical cosmos would not have anything like magic in it but it could have several things that is similar. However it would not be fantasy then, fantasy requires a certain element of non-logic.

What there can be is a pervasive belief that magic exists, leading many people to think that magical effects are possible or even common. And you can have numerous con artists and charlatans taking advanmtage of that belief to sell worthless postions, take money for putting non-existant hexes on people's enemies, etc. Character can go to magical helaers who claim tot reat their injuries but in relaity do nothing -- and who then claim "the stars were wrong" when the patient, to their surrpise, dies.

How is this different from our world today? Magic needs to be mysterious and exiting. Otherwise you end up with your players looking behind the curtain.

(Ignore the man behind the curtain! Ignore the man behind the curtain!)

I have read books placed in world which does not exist nor did it ever, with cultures which does not nor will ever exist but they had no magic. Therefore they are not fantasy.

Whatever you chose to do to your campaign don’t make it boring just to make it more logical.

Re: Thinking About DARK CHAMPIONS BATTLEGROUNDS

 

how about a slum tenement/transient hotel type building..

 

That would be really usefull.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Here at the NGD.

Actually the time is ripe for this church to split up. I decleare that there is not enough Bazz in Bazzism!

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Yeah' date=' understood, but the search won't put me back to where I was. Like I said, it's just a nuisance. I can complain endlessly, because that's my nature, but not a big deal, really.[/quote']

Well if you vagely remember what the poster was talking about and what his or her name was you should have no problem. Offcourse if you read a lot of small posts then it could be a problem.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

do we celebrate Bazztain?

Most do, allthoug some do it without the sten. Such hard-liners must pay a price though you could almost call it stigmata.

BEHOLD: The finger stigmata of the Bazzi'st!

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Okay so you are posting on the endless threads then...

Use the search feature. You can use them for induvidual threads also not just the board and the forums.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

That is why you get it to show you all subscribed thread's!

On the other hand it would be cool if you got an email everytime someone quoted you in a thread.

In any case they got our email so if they really want you to answer then they can e-mail you.