tkdguy

The first Romana (Mary Tamm) was way hotter than the second one (Lalla Ward). I always thought Ms. Ward looked like an emaciated Cabbage Patch Kid (sorry, Lalla!). I heard she and Tom Baker got married. Is it true?

Let's see... Halflings... small size, reputed to be good at archery and thrown object, usually know their home area like the backs of their hands. Sounds like they'd be great at guerilla warfare, especially if they shape their land to create lots of places to ambush outsiders. Maybe you have great strength and are the greatest swordsman in the world. But try to invade halfling lands, and you'll never have the chance to flaunt your virtues. You'll never even get close.

Depends which group I'm playing with. One of my groups don't like historical or pseudo-historical games; they can't roleplay characters in those time periods. One of them just doesn't like fantasy, period. It may work with my current group. I'm running a swashbuckler/martial arts game, but again, they may not be able to get into it. If this campaign fails, I'll try a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen type of campaign.

There's always translating stuff. You could: A. Use a D&D setting for FH to give the players some familiarity with the world. Learning a new system can be difficult enough. I know a couple of people who post here have done conversions. B. Integrate some HERO mechanics in your D&D game. Maybe let BAB = OCV, AC-10 = DCV. I know it's not a perfect fit, but it could work. Also, use STUN as a measure of subdual damage the PCs can take, maybe hit points + twice the maximum hit die type for the character [ex. fighter rolls d10, so a fighter with 24 hp has 24 + (2 x 10) = 44 STUN]. Use STUN multipliers so that a sword strike would do 1d8 hp and 1d8 x 1d6-1 STUN (minimum value x1). Allow extra skill points (up to 8) for taking disadvantages. Use disadvantage cost/5 for number of skill points awarded. Or 10 points/disadvantage = 1 extra feat.

Okay, I just posted this on the d20 forum, but I think HERO would probably be a better fit. What do you think about a campaign based on the works of Jules Verne or HG Wells? I know Castle Falkenstein used War of the Worlds and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (among others) in the Steam Age sourcebook. Does a HERO version of this kind of campaign appeal to you?

Just a few questions to consider: 1. Do you already have a setting? If not, you can always use your own city/town as the background. That way, the players will already be familiar with the area. 2. Have the characters already met? If so, how did they meet, considering their varied backgrounds? If not, how could they meet? That would probably be the first advenure. 3. Why not use your local newspaper for ideas? The stories covered -- rape, murder, arson, etc. -- are perfect plot hooks for any Dark Champions campaign. Just change the names.

I usually use different sources for cities. I use maps from the Forgotten Realms, Middle Earth (ICE, not Decipher), Harn, Shadow World, and 7th Sea. I just change the names and do whatever modifications I need to do. You can even go that other company's website and clivck on the Map a Week section. There are at least a couple of city maps there, usually divided into several parts. Since they're just maps without text, you can use them however you want.

And people think I'M bad after a mostly sleepless night... Well, I'm still waiting for FH to be delivered to the gaming store I frequent. Then I have to wait until my paycheck arrives, etc. I'd order online, but I already owe my soul to the credit card companies. Congratulations on losing your mind, by the way. What took you so long? I lost my mind before I even knew I had one!

You weren't talking about Gamescape, were you? 'Cause the guys there were acting wackier than usual yesterday. Okay, everyone who goes there (myself included) is wacky on any given day, but yesterday seemed a little stranger than most. Another time I was there, tow girls came in to see what their boyfriends were up to. They left looking like they landed on an alien world. As one of the girls put it, "very educational!"

I guess you can always make photocopies. Shrink the pages so you can fit 2 pages in 1 sheet of paper. Then you cover it with a transparent page protector and put it in a 3-ring binder. Just do this with the pages you really need. That should save some space. I know someone who did that. No copyright infringement meant; just lightening the load.

If the pet is trained and has a useful skill or two (It doesn't have to be combat; tracking is a good skill for dogs), then the pet can be written up as a follower. If on the other hand, it's just a companion, it should be classified as a DNPC. Keep in mind that it really sucks to have your pet constantly harmed or taken away from you.

There was also Max Shrek, who played Count Orlock (the bald, pointy-eared, long-nailed, saber-toothed vampire in Nosferatu). I also created a villain called von Shrek, and I made sure my players learned to hate him.

Do you know how long it took me to find VHS versions of Hawk the Slayer and Ralph Bakshi's interpretation of Lord of the Rings? I practically called every video store to find these. One guy said he had them and asked for $40 for each of them. When I got there, he didn't have Bakshi's LOTR, but he was willing to sell Hawk for $80, double the price we agreed on. I left without the tape. In the end, I rented the Bakshi flick and copied it. My friend rented a laserdisc copy of Hawk the Slayer and made me a copy on VHS. Okay, it wasn't an epic quest. But it was a lot of effort.

I'm running a realistic fantasy campaign starting this weekend. It too is a lot like the Three Musketeers, but with kung fu in addition to rapier fighting. No magic though; this is a "scientific" world. Actually, most of my questions posted on the various boards were asked so that I could get help running this campaign.

If you're looking for bardic music you could do a search (over the web or in a library) for old songs and stories. There are CDs of medieval music out there; I have a small collection. There's a lot good stuff there. Of course, it helps if you like classical music. Alternatively, you can play traditional music instead. If you can find the 2nd Edition AD&D book The Complete Bard's Handbook, you'll find a few traditional songs, as well as a lot of instruments there, more complete than Song and Silence. I haven't seen Mongoose Publishing's The Quintessential Bard, so I can't comment on it. I don't even know if it's out; I think it is, though. Your bards don't have to be musicians. They can be historians, poets, storytellers, or playwrights. You can always borrow liberally from Shakespeare or Marlowe. Since this is a fantasy campaign, you can even let one of the PCs becoming your world's counterpart to Shakespeare, if one doesn't exist already.

I think you should come up with an explanation why fighters, cleric, snad thieves have their own cities. Is everyone in the city a thief, or is crime just rampant over there? Here are a few questions you may wish to consider. Let's say all the clerics stay in city X. First of all, are the clerics anything like the D&D clerics, or are they just normal people born to a priestly caste? What would be their function? Why would they stay only in that city, when they can spread their faith among the masses? Also, assuming priests have healing magic, how far would people have to travel in order to save a stricken comrade? As for the thieves in city Y, why do they predominate in that city? Is it a penal colony where convicted criminals are sent? If so, what is there to steal? Also, the law would be either ineffective or nonexistent there. If it is an independent city-state, why would people do business there? If it is part of a king, why doesn't the king send troops (presumably recruited from city Z where the fighters are) to restore order? I'm not trying to dismiss your ideas; I'm just asking you some questions that will hopefully help you make your campaign as rich and unique as possible. I can understand you trying to keep the spirit of the fantasy genre as standard as possible, but you want to avoid a generic campaign with cookie-cutter characters. Both you and your players will soon tire of it otherwise.

Sounds good to me. What have you got?

Thank you, Lord Liaden. It's nice to finally find the answers.

Where can we find the results of the contests? All I want to see is who won each contest. I don't want to sort out each thread to find the answer.

I have a few sources that state the ratio 1:20:12. That means 1 gp = 20 sp, and 1 sp = 12 cp. By the 17th century, at least, a copper coin was considered too debased to be of any value. Here are some values for coinage from GURPS Swashbucklers. I'll also include the metal used, according to the book: Au = gold, Ag = silver, Cu = copper (see above note). Spain: 1 Doblon/Doubloon (Au) = 2 Pistoles (Au) = 5 Pesos/Pieces of eight (Ag) = 40 Reals (Ag) = 1360 Maravedis (Cu) = $100 France: 1 Louis d'Or/Pistole (Au) = 3 Ecus (Ag) = 9 Livre (Ag) = 180 Sous (Cu) = $60 England: 1 Guinea (Au) = 1.05 Pounds (a unit of account, not a coin) = 4.2 Crowns (Ag) = 21 Shillings (Ag) = 252 Pennies (Cu) = $105 Holland: 1 Ducat (Au) = 2.5 Lion Dollars (Ag) = 5 Florins/Guldens/Guilders (Ag) = 100 Stuivers (Cu) = $40 Don't worry about farthings, ha'pennies, groots, piastres, krone, and the like...you'll only go insane.

Here's a suggestion I posted on the WOTC boards and got flamed for it. I'll change it to HERO terms. Guess I'm a glutton for punishment. My basic premise is that magic is a wild and powerful force. Those who would attempt to harness it pay a heavy price. In HERO terms, the wizard pays extra END or takes STUN whenever casting a spell. In addition, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells are so draining that miscasting the spell (failed magic roll) incurs a side effect (7th level = minor, 8th level = major, 9th level = extreme). One possible effect would be a permanent 3 point reduction in a random Characteristic score, according to cost. The randomness shows the chaotic nature of magic. Another could be immunity to a certain type of magic, but the wizard permanently loses the ability to cast that form of magic. No, I don't hate spellcasters. I'm just making a suggestion as how to make sorcery appear like the dangerous force it's supposed to be. Fighter types need not feel left out. I'm thinking of a particularly nasty way to mess them up when they roll 18 on their attacks.

Thank you. I appreciate the help. It's my first time GMing the HERO system, although I've played it for a few years.

Great job, Pattern Ghost! Mind if I use your example for my players? They're new to the system, and I'm sure they'll need help understanding how combat works.

I guess it depends on what you want, Maybe the TOON game (I don't know if it's still around) would be better for Loony Tunes games. If you're looking for anime, HERO or Big Eyes Small Mouth would work better.

My campaign doesn't have a "common" tongue per se. There are languages that the cultured elite favor at the moment, but they're hardly universal. Maybe it's just me, but convenient though the common tongue and racial languages may be, I find the idea over simplistic. Even if nonhumans existed in the campaign, I'd make it so a Scandinavian elf and a British elf would speak different languages and may not even understand each other. I particularly hated the alignment toungues in the original D&D and 1st Edition AD&D. I got rid of those long before TSR trashed the idea in 2nd Edition AD&D. You could use languages like Quenya (not Noldorin, that was changed before the Silmarillion was published) and Sindarin, but I would suggest regional dialects showing subtle differences.