Michael Hopcroft

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Figured, usually based on EGO.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares The way SAN works in CoC is that when you see or do something that blasts your concepts of reality (like just about anything you encounter in CoC), you lose points from your SAN score. The lower your SAN score, the crazier you get and the greater the damage from more mind-blasting things. It's actually a mechanic that some have adapted to Hero because it's so useful in a horror game.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: The handkerchief factory just got blown down! Did you have anything to do with it? A: Book, Schnook! Blow the house down!

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Didn't you used to have hair? A: This is one situation where overtime is a bad thing.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Symphony No. 2 in D by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic.

Re: Pulparize It! Thank you. I was inspired by the Hammer Frankenstein series, where Peter Cushing played Frankenstein as a somewhat sympathetic figure -- haunted by his past, trying to do good to the community in atonement, but always getting dragged down into the abyss.

Re: How about anime Campaigns? Anime is not a matter of genre. It is a matter of style, and even there there are many styles within the style if you know what I mean. Even within subgenres like mecha anime (and remember, the Japanese use mecha for any sort of vehicles from cars to megastarships), you have serious war stories, superheroic extravagant adventures, romantic fantasies, slyly satiric comedies and everything in between. (There are even retellings of Shakespearean plots that use mecha, just as there are others that use magic).

Re: Pulparize It! Frankenstein Has Risen from the Grave: after escaping from the electric chair, the notorious scientist Doctor Victor Frankenstein seeks a way to use his skills to atone for the mistakes he has made in creating and animating his Monster. But sinister forces conspire to threaten him with exposure and force him to use his talents for evil. Can Dr. Frankenstein overcome his reputations and inclinations and defeat these dark powers, or will he once again be forced to walk the path to self-destruction?

Re: Designing the perfect Mecha or Giant Robot. The Un-Piloted Giant Robot sounds lie something you build as a character, with lots of points and some levels in Growth Always On to reflect its size. As the Transformers franchise shows, such robots can be as intelligent or stupid as you want them to be, and nimbler than one would expect for things that size -- in other words just like player-characters. It would be relatively easy to do a campaign where the robots are the PCs and humans are NPCs of varying significance.

I'm wondering how one models the particular genre ability, seen in things like John Woo movies and things inspired by John Woo movies, in which a particular hero soaks up enormous amounts of damage, but is able to will himself to keep alive and fighting until he has defeated the one opponent he really desires to destroy. Once he has done that, everything he's absorbed takes full effect, which usually results in him dropping dead on the spot.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: So mice are noble and cats are wicked? A: I dislike rats at the best of times, but this one was sounding an alarm.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: So you can get me a job? A: I have a letter of recommendation from the Bavarian Illuminati. That should be enough.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: So, you survived your encounter with the Rocky Mountain Oyster Fiend? A: It's time to make the donuts.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: We'd like you to write a review of The Illustrated King in Yellow. Are you up to it? Q: What I did to the dog is really, really unique. Wanna see it? A: Hastur? Sure, it's no problem to mention him. Hastur, Hastur, Has --

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Where should I shelve the Complete Works of the Marquis de Sade? A: As your doctor, I have to tell you to stop doing that.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Everyone who believes in the reality of UFOs. NT: Additional signs that the Psychic Investigator visiting your home is out of her mind. (Difficulty: the very fact that she calls herself a Psychic Investigator doesn't count).

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Braains. On thick crust. NT: Subtle signs that the guy putting your new home-built PC together is out of his mind.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Want to see what I got from the African Swallows? A: Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! No more bloody singing!

Re: Answers & Questions Q: So you opened the door precipitously and caused a TPK. What do you have to say for yourself, Fred? A: Nature abhors a vacuum and so do I.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Dentures? At your age? In the name of all that is good and pure, why? A: And the ship with eight sails and its fifty guns loaded ties up at dusk.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: What is the surest way to use artillery to destroy all the Yetis? A: Now I can be my own best friend, and I can send myself for pizza.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: How did you catch so many fish in such a small lake? A: I heard it on the X.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Barney, My Little Pony and the Care Bears are making a public appearance together! How do we greet them? A: I am barney the deputy! I am Barney the deputy! I am not Barney the Dinosaur!

Re: Answers & Questions Q: What words are rarely heard after screenings of Return of the Jedi? A:This book is all that I need!

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat One that transforms into a Go-Kart. NT: Creative ways to persuade Unicron not to eat your planet.