UltraRob

Re: Steampunk Star Wars (Needs Better Name) Well done! I like it. Choosing to set it during the 18th century instead of going Victorian like so many often do was a nice touch. It really allows for a lot more flexibility in the setting- keeping it a touch more fantasy and swashbuckling instead of highbrow proper British. Rob

Re: Shadow Warriors: The Best Ninja-Hero Source Material Ever

Has anyone here watched this yet? I'm on the second DVD of the Shadow Warriors (Kage no Gundan) boxed set and I can't get enough! I already ordered more through an e-bay seller ($30 a season for English subbed DVDs if you find the right guy) and I'm totally in love with this series! Sonny Chiba is like the Japanese William Shatner- stick him in the right role and he's a coolness god! And this is definitely the right role! The story itself is about a team of Ninja from a clan that's fallen into disfavor going on special missions for the Shogun's guardian. The show itself comes across like a weird mix of Lone Wolf and Cub and Mission Impossible (the TV series) and takes a bit of getting used to, but once you hit the third episode it rocks so hard you won't want to see it end! From a gaming perspective picture this: Set during the Tokugawa era, the clan is scattered across Japan in teams of five, each team member with a "secret ID" they use to survive, gather information, and as a cover while their team engages in covert ops. One week it's a plot against the local lord that will bring war if it succeeds, the next rogue ninja from their own clan come to town to make war on their rivals, and the next they must infiltrate a corrupt magistrate's office. The possibilities are endless, and the action is fast and furious. (And I've only been talking about the real show! ) If you see this sitting on your DVD store shelf I high recommend grabbing it, especially since there won't be any more printings of it as the company distributing it recently went under. Rob P.S. The link above says the series takes place during the 1500's, but it's wrong. The rest of the writeup is pretty accurate, though.

A science fiction audio adventure drama starring Greg Nugent [Dymatrex] as Imperial Naval Officer Albert Tysen and Melissa D. Johnson [Mippa] as the Space Pirate Zhang Ping-An, two figures on opposite sides in a battle for the destiny of mankind’s first empire of the stars. Book One, Episode One- Stationfall! Download Stream Podcast Also Starring: Tegan Harris [Emberwolf] as Squire Esther Chris Gumprich as Leederman Ty Konzak [Aramek] as Kip David Ault as Sir Fawn River Kanoff [sinowbeat] as Brother Ganymede John Boardman as Brother Io Richard Bartock [DrifterXGS] as Camus And Fiona Thraille [fthrll] and Amanda Price [Pyrrhical] as the kids in the park. Opening Music: peterchen+beyondinfinity (http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=416595) Closing Music: _-={Victorious Day}=-_ (ID: 81243)This track can be found at (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/view.php?id=1714459&sub=81243) Other Music: Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Denny Schneidemesser: (http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=604509) Newgrounds.com Audio Portal Apple iLife Jingles Collection Sound Effects: Freesound Project: Apple iLife Sound Effects Collection Soundsnap.com And Purchased from Soundeffectslibrary.com This show and all characters within are copyright 2008 Robyn Paterson, all rights reserved.

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial And finally, to celebrate the end of the project, a team picture!

Re: My new on-line comic Not bad! Poser has definitely improved a lot, and you did well setting them up and positioning them. They're still a little stiff, but you did manage to capture some real feeling in them. Rob

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial My Director’s Notes for TIA discussing the origins of the project, the evolution, how audio dramas are made, the characters and the cast as well as various trivia about the story. Runtime: Approx 1 hour. Direct Download Stream

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial Team Iron Angel: Black Dawn of the Golden Age Episode Ten: Payback Direct Download Stream Podcast Summary: In the serial finale, Soong finds herself facing Fung alone on a mountainside as old debts are repaid. Runtime: 15:48 mins Written and Produced by: Robyn Paterson [ultraRob] Starring (in order of Appearance) [With VoiceActingAlliance.com handles in Square Brackets] Crystal Lonnquist [Morningstar_Smiles] as Wan Amanda Price [pyrrichal] as The Narrator and Hyang-Sook Soong-Four Alanna [scarlotte] as Lieutenant Casey Stone- One Tegan Harris [emberwolf] as Miki Kethumbwe- Three Fiona Thraille [fthrll] as Karin St. Laurent - Two Ty Konzak [Aramek] as Fung Jade Elam [Lonewing] as Miri Evelyn Yung [Yuriko52] as The Guardian of the Grove Johnathan Lourdes [Teacher_Nine] as GiSiGu and Jared J. Lee [u-1] as Uncle Nikolai Opening Music: Untitled, by Peter Chen Closing Music: Cool Spies, by Peter Chen, Prairiewinds by Peter Chen find his work at: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=416595 Liberty by Stephano Maccarelli, find his work at: http://www.soundclick.com/pro/view/02/default.cfm?BandID=578970&ref=7 To Be an Angel by Uncle Seth, find their work at: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=20210 Used under the creative commons license. Addition music provided by the Apple iLife Jingles Collection Sound Effects: Freesounds: 30659_ERH_ill_wind Findsounds.com The Transformers Sound Effects Collection And Axel of the VAA. Casting done on http://voiceactingalliance.com This work and all characters within are copyright 2007 Robyn Paterson.

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial Team Iron Angel: Black Dawn of the Golden Age Episode Nine: Cliffhanger Direct Download Stream Podcast Summary: Soong races to save friend and enemy alike. Runtime: 21mins Written and Produced by: Robyn Paterson [ultraRob] Starring (in order of Appearance) [With VoiceActingAlliance.com handles in Square Brackets] Amanda Price [pyrrichal] as The Narrator and Hyang-Sook Soong-Four Alanna [scarlotte] as Lieutenant Casey Stone- One Crystal Lonnquist [Morningstar_Smiles] as Wan Ty Konzak [Aramek] as Fung Opening Music: Untitled, by Peter Chen Closing Music: Cool Spies, by Peter Chen, find his work at: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=416595 Addition music provided by the Apple iLife Jingles Collection Sound Effects: Freesounds: 15528_Hell_s_Sound_Guy_DOMESTIC_CAT_PURR 30659_ERH_ill_wind Findsounds.com The Transformers Sound Effects Collection And Axel of the VAA. Casting done on http://voiceactingalliance.com This work and all characters within are copyright 2007 Robyn Paterson.

Re: Spell Active/ Real Cost in Average Games

Re: Team Iron Angel-BDGA: A Superheroic Audio Adventure Serial Team Iron Angel: Black Dawn of the Golden Age Episode Eight: Shifting Snows Direct Download Stream Podcast Summary: Soong, her teammates down, finds herself trapped between two foes, both of whom want the Ambassador. Runtime: 20mins Written and Produced by: Robyn Paterson [ultraRob] Starring (in order of Appearance) [With VoiceActingAlliance.com handles in Square Brackets] Amanda Price [pyrrichal] as The Narrator and Hyang-Sook Soong-Four Fiona Thraille [fthrll] as Karin St. Laurent - Two Alanna [scarlotte] as Lieutenant Casey Stone- One Tegan Harris [emberwolf] as Miki Kethumbwe- Three Jared J. Lee [u-1] as Uncle Nikolai Crystal Lonnquist [Morningstar_Smiles] as Wan Ty Konzak [Aramek] as Fung Opening Music: Untitled, by Peter Chen Closing Music: Cool Spies, by Peter Chen, find his work at: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=416595 Heroesendalegendsrise by Denny Schneidenmesser , find his work at: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?bandID=604509 Addition music provided by the Apple iLife Jingles Collection Sound Effects: Freesounds: 15528_Hell_s_Sound_Guy_DOMESTIC_CAT_PURR 12733_Leady_pick_up_briefcase Findsounds.com The Transformers Sound Effects Collection And Axel of the VAA. Casting done on http://voiceactingalliance.com This work and all characters within are copyright 2007 Robyn Paterson. This step into audio adventure and others can be found at http://kungfuactiontheatre.com, where theatre is spelt with an “re” at the end, because that’s how it’s done with style. Until next time!

Re: Heroic Endurance and Stun I think the simpler compromise lies in the area of Long Term Endurance. Just have STUN damage inflict LTE with the idea being that the body is suffering pain and stress. If you want to set up a really simple system, have say 5 STUN taken inflict 1pt worth of LTE to the character. This will accumulate quickly if they get into multiple fights, and result in characters barely able to lift a finger after a few fights if they get hit a lot. Or alternately, just say that every turn of combat automatically causes 4-(REC/3, round down) points of LTE to the characters involved. This would mean a weak character with 3 REC or less takes 3 LTE per turn of combat activity, an average one takes 2 LTE, better than average (9 REC) takes 1 LTE a turn and superhuman (12+) could just take 0 per turn. Using this system, one fight won't exhaust you, but continuous fights quickly will. Rob

Re: fantasy books I suggest neither, read Guards! Guards! by Terry Prachett if you haven't already. Reading one Wheel of Time book killed the Fantasy Genre for me for a while, but Guards! Guards! made me love it again. It's a slightly humorous take on what it's like to be the members of the Town Guard in a particularly unpleasant city, but Prachett brings the whole place so much to life you can't help but fall in love with the characters and Diskworld setting's take on Fantasy. Rob P.S. if it's either/or for you, I suggest Song of Fire and Ice, which at least will give you something other than Jordan's....work.

Campaign GM: "UltraRob! SOS! I can't make gaming night tomorrow! Can you run? I repeat...Can you run?":idjit: UltraRob: "Relax o revered GM! UltraRob is on the case!" So, with that, UltraRob sped into action! He had one night to prepare, but what was he going to run? Having just finished watching a bunch of Naurto live action fan videos online, and having been wanting to take a stab at a Naruto HERO game, even for a oneshot, the choice was obvious! So, how to put together a winning one-shot for a bunch of gamers of variable HERO experience that will only last a few hours? Here's how I went about it! Step One: Find a bunch of Naruto fanart of original characters from deviant art. This guy fit the bill. Step Two: Pick the following: one character for each PC, an equal number of NPC ninja pictures, and one to be a teacher. Step Three: Grab Hero Designer and whip together a generic Genin (Ninja Cadet/Student) Ninja Template. I made them on 125 points, buying equipment with points, but gave them no disads at all! (See below for why.) Step Four: Mod the template to fit each picture (I mostly played around with stats and gave one or two unique skills to each), giving each one or two Jutsu (funky ninja powers) in addition to standard Ninja equipment and skills. I gave my characters each a unique power, but that's not quite by the book for the setting: From Wikipedia: Step Five: Print out character sheets and pictures of both good guys and bad guys, make sure nothing is double-sided. (I cheated with the opposition, using just the generic template and modding it with notes, but had full sheets for each picture.) Step Six: Go to game. Step Seven: Show the players only the pictures of the PC group, and have them pick the sheets with the pictures on them they think would be good to play. (Tell them nothing else!) Once each one has picked a picture, have them flip over the picture and on the blank back of the page write 5 interesting things about that character in point form. (Personality, goals, quirks, whatever). (Tell them they will be rated on these. (optional)) Step Eight: (optional) Once they're done, they hand them to the GM, the GM then rates what they wrote on a scale of 1-5 and that number is the number of Hero Points they get for the game. These are my generic metagaming points which I used to reward players and keep things heroic in games like HERO which lack any such system. Each point can be used to a) reroll any die in the game, or not die from a shot that should have killed you, only leaving you badly wounded. Step Nine: Hand the players out the actual character sheets which go along with each picture. Let them read it over and explain anything that needs explaining, especially in regards to special abilities. Step Ten: Run Game The Tutorial- The players, genin (apprentice Ninja in this setting) arrived at a forest clearing in the morning to find their teacher Tenchi-Sensei (a white haired genius Ninja girl) waiting for them to put them through their morning exercises. Their instructions were simple- beat her up and don't hold back. Of course, she's much higher skilled than they are, so she's mostly playing defensive while they get a feel for their characters. In my game, she used a Ninja Duplicate technique partway through when they couldn't see her, and then they found themselves facing 3 of her, each of which could hit normally, but disappeared if they took 1 BODY damage. (The real teach had at this point taken off to watch from a nearby tree anyways, as they soon discovered.) The key here is just giving them practice, don't let this run longer than 2 full turns before she calls it quits. She then informs them that they have a mission, tells them the mission, and lets them know they need to show up at the city's South Gate at lunchtime. They have a few hours to get anything ready they'll need on the trip. The Mission: The players are to escort a local merchant through the forrest to a city 3 days away. He's driving a large wagon and a full team of oxen, and the players will be expected to walk beside him and keep him safe for the trip. There's no danger, they're told, it's a simple babysitting job. However, if they do encounter any opposition, they're to bring them in alive for questioning under any circumstances. When the players meet the merchant "Mr. Taro", they'll find he's a curious and slightly lecherous old man who will ask them lots of questions and provide them with as much trouble and comic relief as the GM wishes. The Complications: At the same time, there is a group of NPC Genin students being told by their teacher the following: "another group of Genin are escorting a man to the city on the edge of the forrest, capture him and return him here. You are under no circumstances to seriously hurt them, just knock them out and leave them. You leave at dinnertime today, any questions?" So, as you can see, the actual scenario is more or less a game of hockey, with each side trying to get the puck (the merchant) into their own net. Whether they need to get his cargo there or not too is up to the GM, but I suggest against it as it might slow things down. The Result: In my game, the players foiled an attempt to sneak the merchant out during the first camping night and decided to make a run for it. (Or as fast as an ox cart moving at night could handle.) This led to a bloody confrontation on the road just before dawn of that night which left half of each team incapacitated and the others at a stalemate. The ones who remained negotiated a withdrawl and both sides retreated to lick their wounds and try again. The PCs then prepared plans to fortify their position the next night to keep the NPCs out, but the game had to be called there on account of time. (We only had 3 hours to play.) To understate the case, it was a rousing success all around, which is why I thought I'd post it here for others to consider. I should note that all but one PC actually had either seen or read some of the Naruto comic/anime, and they filled in the unfamiliar one quickly. ("We're ninja cadets.") Notes: Funky Ninja Powers I built their Jutsu (techniques) as 45 point multipowers, each with 2 clearly labelled slots. These multipowers had the limitation Gestures: Requires Both Hands. Their Jutsu were powered by Chakra Pools (END Reserves) of 3x their EGO, with a REC of 1/2 their EGO per hour. Depending on how much you want them using their abilities, this may be too much or too little. Standard Ninja Stuff: +3" Running +6" Leaping Kunai Throwing Irons (multipower: 1 1/2D6 RKA/HKA, 6 recoverable charges) Explosive bombs smoke/explosives (20 active points, charges) Herb Healing Patches (given to the group medic), 1D6 healing, 20 charges. (use carefully) Shirken (RKA with 4 recoverable charges)

Re: D-Ranger Audio Adventure D-Ranger: Adventure One- The Package, Part Two Direct Download Stream Podcast Written and Produced by Robyn Paterson Runtime: 21.4 minutes (19.93mb) Starring, in Order of Appearance. P3RFECT as Brad Ryans Elgie as Pixelle Ty Konzak as Malarek Alanna as Lee With Amanda Price and Robyn Paterson as Blood Rein Troopers Opening Music: Theme for a Hero, by Stefano Maccarelli http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?bandID=578970 Closing Music: Puddle of Life by Peter Chen http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?bandID=416595 Addition Music by Stefano Maccarelli Find their work at Soundclick.com, used under the creative commons license. Sound Effects Provided by: Freesounds.au 21890_dobroide_20060804_marshes_cricket01 17738_arvid_earth2 12735_Leady_Dropping_a_large_gun cocking_-splinty-1372 3211_Sonic_sonic_ferry_interior_loop2 12733_Leady_pick_up_briefcase Findsounds.com Axel of the VAA, the Voice Acting Alliance And The Apple iLife Sound Effects Collection Casting done at voiceactingalliance.com This work and all characters and premises within are copyright 2007 Robyn Paterson, all rights reserved.