KawangaKid

Re: Shadow World setting

Stands a chance of allowing us a Dark Champions entry for Sherlock Holmes in the modern era. The official link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t4pgh The wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(TV_series) Well-written, good casting, excellent acting, and fantastic (if sometimes a bit too clever) direction. Critically acclaimed and a hit in the U.K. -- one that has boosted sales of the stories, has kicked off an interest in the fashion of both leads, and has already garnered a guaranteed second season. Yes, second season. The 1st season was only three episodes. Three 90 minute episodes (that's a movie length, isn't it?). It's like a trilogy! I liked the modernization of Sherlock AND the modernization of Watson -- there seems to be a solid foundation for the friendship and a sort of even contribution to the partnership (with Holmes always taking center stage). And the easter eggs for the fans of the books are there. Interestingly enough, the purist in me wasn't offended like I was with the Guy Ritchie flick. Perhaps the fact that it was a modern day Sherlock Holmes helped me deal with the artistic AND necessary revisions to canon. YMMV of course.

Re: STAR HERO Reading List I've backread a bit quickly, but I'd like to suggest: Richard K. Morgan -- Altered Carbon, an interesting novel that's essentially a hard-boiled detective novel set in a transhumanist setting. The main character is an envoy who is sleeved (mind is transmitted into the body) into a dead police officer and is asked by a very rich and very old man to find out why he attempted to commit suicide knowing that there are backups of him with all his memories intact (the dude owns the company too, if I recall). Dan Simmons -- Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion for an interesting take on how different genres of SF can co-exist in the same universe. Interesting takes on religion in SF as well. On top of that, the first novel is inspired by the narrative convention of Canterbury Tales (allowing each character to tell a story focusing on a certain genre of SF). Endymion and Rise of Endymion are optional. Also, since no specific "Culture" novel by Iain Banks was mentioned, I'll recommend that you try Player of Games or Consider Phlebas. A non-Culture SF novel of his -- Against a Dark Background -- is also pretty good but the title doesn't lie; it's pretty dark. For the "Honor Harrington" novel(s), I recommend the first two for some good ship combat and naval / star nation politics. Good reading!

Re: STAR HERO Reading List

Re: Kulthea - the Shadow World ha! did a search for shadow world and kulthea, and found my own thread on google. Must do something with Shadow World; these thoughts were buzzing around before I was married and now I've got an almost 2-year old kid! Hero 6th, I think I've found my fantasy setting for you.

Re: Pulp Inspiration: The Guild of Specialists Trilogy (Book 1 - Operation Red Jerich woohoo, found the other two books by the same publisher!

Re: Martial Arts iiinnn ssspppaaaccceee!!! Which style is flexible enough? You don't suppose there's a maneuver called "The Mote in God's Eye"?

Re: Yet another D&D to Fantasy HERO conversion So cool! This will also go on the reading list.

Re: Wand of wonder like power Try to break it up into a mixture of: 50% useful attack stuff 25% useful support stuff 15% neither good nor bad stuff 10% non-sequitur non-combat stuff

Planetary did it (supposedly for the Image universe), and here's the latest attempt for the Marvel Universe! "Although Marvel Comics didn’t start publishing until 1939, the Marvel Universe’s history with the superheroic and supernatural go back to the dawn of man. After showing his mettle on titles such as Secret Warriors and Fantastic Four, writer Jonathan Hickman takes on the secret history of the Marvel Universe in the series S.H.I.E.L.D.. In this ongoing series, Hickman and artist Dustin Weaver are unraveling the origins of S.H.I.E.L.D. and find that it isn’t merely a modern spy organization but a group that traces its history back into the earliest days of humankind. The book will chart previously untold stories of classic historical figures such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Galileo and others as they work to keep humanity on track and repel threats from those around them and from the space above." http://www.newsarama.com/comics/SHIELD-Hickman-interview-100406.html We could mesh this with Steve Long's history of the HEROverse somehow, given that some of the characters feature are historical figures.

Re: A great Pulp monster... so Cool!

Re: Blogs with nice inspirational Science Fiction Images A site for a free Space Opera RPG has a nice Art display link in the left sidebar. http://www.icar.co.uk/

Re: Blogs with nice inspirational Science Fiction Images Wow, haven't looked at that site in a while -- it's really grown!

here's one with some amazing concept ship designs: http://conceptships.blogspot.com/ And um... yeah. I'm fishing for more. Help?

Re: Western Spaghetti Samurai Frontier Feel to Fantasy Sword & Sorcery Or hobbits!

Re: Math Perhaps the BASH makers bought into the belief of the late Gary Gygax that multiplying was easier than adding and subtracting (or just reading off the values on percentile dice) as he argued in his famous RPG... CYBORG COMMANDO! (Apologies, Mr. Gygax, but really!)

Re: Champions Sneak Peek #1: The Cover! Looks good!

Re: Pulp Inspiration: The Guild of Specialists Trilogy (Book 1 - Operation Red Jerich Wish I'd gotten the full color one. When I picked up a copy of the first book, I got the black&white diagram / interiors one. Darn it!

Re: The HERO System Advanced Player's Guide

Re: Expanding the 6E Character Abilities Guidelines and Characteristics Comparison Ta True enough. I guess I'd better buckle down and put together one for my campaign as an example of what I mean.

Just picked up a book in the bookstore called Operation Red Jericho. It's a Young Adult book set in the 1920s and really reads like a pulp adventure. More than that, the book has a secret organization, villains, and TONS of pictures from the era, diagrams of the Q ship that the protagonists find themselves on, diagrams of the hidden guns on the ship, maps, postcard, advertisements, interesting pseudo science and real science, drawings of the other secret organization, historical anecdotes, newspaper clippings throughout the book and lots more in the Appendices. Not only can you crib NPCs and plot ideas from this, you can scan/photocopy the various sidebar articles / diagrams / images as handouts for you pulp campaign. Plus, it may be a good way to introduce gaming to the younger crowd, haha! Look at these links to find out more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Jericho http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Red-Jericho-Guild-Specialists/dp/0763626341

Re: Expanding the 6E Character Abilities Guidelines and Characteristics Comparison Ta

Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?: More on Anting-anting Well, I should think so. There's always someone looking for an edge. I mean, we haven't even mention "orasyons / oracions" which are essentially little prayers / spells in latin that the old school martial artists here say to "power up" themselves or their anting-antings or their magical weapons. Some of these things are appeals to Catholic saints or to the Holy Trinity -- a remnant of the strong influence of the long Spanish occupation of the Philippines (we're named after a Spanish king, after all). Oh yeah, a lot of modern arnis training owes a lot to the Spanish style of teaching fencing (the numbers for the different types of attacks, scientific diagrams / analysis of stances and angles of attack). I believe the La Destreza school of fencing was renowned for this approach. Old school training tended to be "here's the stick, here's the angles of attack, try not to get hurt too badly -- now defend yourself, student!" and you learned by fighting your master a lot. Of course, the masters held back. It was only in the death matches between masters that these guys went all out. Tradition has it that the grandmasters had folding fans with the names of masters that they'd defeated / killed in deathmatches to show their grandmastery.

Found on pages 35 and 48 respectively, I'm thinking that these should be among the first things created for a campaign or sourcebook for a given setting. The reasoning: one of the many questions I've gotten is related to this table -- how fast should my character be if I want to be as smart as X? There are two approaches here -- one type of gamer just wants the "narrative" approach (if the game system is good, then if I go by the game's benchmarks, and my character's characteristics are easier to decide), another type of gamer wants the "mechanics" approach (how can I be better or the best in X characteristic). I will probably build these for the Shard campaign in my blog, but tables are a pain to do in HTML. Maybe an attached PDF will be better. Thoughts? Sample tables already done?

Re: Your "2010" Pet Gaming Projects Work on the Shard-based SF/Space Opera setting I started in my blog and hopefully finish a sourcebook of sorts. Learn 6E, convert my old characters to it.