ThothAmon

Re: Planets of SF Author Hats Gibson I - Isolated but moderately technologically advanced world, socially and morally fractured. Corporate entities effectively rule the planet from high orbit. Seething masses huddle in poverty watching endless reality TV. AI and genetic engineering normal for the wealthy, sought after by the poor masses. No trans-system spaceflight. Societal malaise has led to excessive navel-gazing in virtual reality. Varley I to VIII - A completely colonised system notable for advanced bioloical and technological achievements including cloning, full-body transplantation, memory / personality transfer, AI and harnessing of black holes as power sources. The system supports a huge number of social, philosophical, religious and sexual variations with governing AIs set up to reinforce individual freedoms, population control and identity control. The exception is Varley III which is a closed world, having been forcibly colonised by an unknown alien species that is inimical to all tool-using life forms. Morgan I - Human colonies amidst alien relics that have so far failed to yield their secrets. Advanced computer / gene tech but limited spaceflight capabilities. Distinguishing features of this system include inter-world transfer of personality via electromagnetic transmission and the reduction of the physical body to the status of clothing.

Re: Twisted Cross, Silver Bullets Why not water down the Delta Green WWII history - Nazis looking for Thule uncover the Elder Thing city in Antarctic (shoggoths) and the fabled Tectonic Agitator that separated Australia from the Asian continent - the Karotechia using Herbert West's formulae to resurrect dead German soldiers for use as shock troops against the Allied advance - Himmler's occult plans to summon Azathoth as a superior form of atomic bomb - Nazi / Deep One alliance vs Allied shipping - ghouls begin to worship Stalin as 'The Great Provider' - UK use of psychics to predict Axis air-raids. All good stuff

Re: Tips on my First Character Kenn has given you character design 101 i.e. talk to your GM to discover what is going on. And as Hyper-Man says, grepping other character builds is a good starting point for your own. My first tip is a little bit of double-think i.e. decide what personality and traits define the character, who he is in the world, who are his nearest-and-dearest, what was he like prior to be coming a super. And do all this before you build. When it gets down to nitty-gritty, you probably want to be working around certain 'average' values that suit the campaign. In our campaign a normal with power armour who wants to be useful out of armour would usually have stats in the following ranges before augmentations: STR 15 DEX 18-20 CON 18 INT 13-18 PRE 15 PD 4 ED 4 SPD 4 Powers-wise you should probably have a look at the sections on Multipowers as that might be appropriate to your weaponised approach (ranged, HTH, darkness). As for the rest, it's a big, varied world. Welcome

Re: Smarter than your average Brick Ever seen the movie 'Enter The Dragon'? Brick or otherwise, a smart HTH combatant will always choose terrain that suits him. Cut down sightlines and keep things at HTH range. Hit and run (or leap), ambush and retreat, float like a butterfly sting like a 16 inch gun.

Re: supper skills Skill: Send bad guy to bed with no supper <= 14

Re: Victorian Era, Mystery Driven, Paranormal Campaign… Help? The 4th Edition book Horror Hero contains a US Victorian horror campaign writeup with all sorts of stats and sourcebook material I have some experience both running and playing in this era. My advice to the GM is to become very familiar with the class and societal divisions of the period. From POV of minimising shooting, earlier is better as you won't have reliable cartridge-loading guns using smokeless powder. Inspiration-wise I'd suggest looking to the fiction of Manley Wade Wellman and Edgar Allen Poe. I think there's a Caleb Carr novel set just slightly later than your preferred period. And there's also a rather good Flashman tale set out West.

Re: Pilot Restores Pitcairn Autogiro Up until 6 years ago my folks lived in a wee village in S Ayrshire. One of the farmers who lives about 2 miles from the village, is notable for taking his gyrocopter out of the barn for the occasional spin over the Ayrshire countryside.

Re: Top 50 movie gunfights IMO missing out the tour-de-force ending from Pale Rider makes this list suspect Also lacking the nifty gunfights from the Trinity westerns. And I'd have included the chucklesome finale from Quigley Down Under.

Re: War Eagles I foresee big piles of bird droppings!

Re: What Makes a Good Non-Human Fantasy Race? Just tossing in the background the races I designed in my original FH 1st Edition campaign and adapted to 4th and 5th... In fantasy lit (and RPG) lot of lipservice is paid to the idea that non-human races predate humans. Rarely does the implementation go beyond window-dressing for the world. I wanted a world where the humans were the newcomers, picking up on tropes from pulp-era fantasy from REH, HPL et al. The end result definitely leaned towards the MAR Barker model, no bad thing really. Flavours from Vance and Leiber also seemed to come through. At the risk of self-promoting, I'll cite an example; a race of nomadic cat-people, sociologically a mix of Aboriginal and Plains Amerindian Cultures (oral history, close to nature, spiritual development over tech development). My own take was from POV of worldview. Start with the world and grow the races semi-logically. The idea of a race filling a niche is a bit weird for me. It's probably the atheist / Darwin / Dawkins influence. Anyways, I've found it tough to stay out of this topic so apologies if I'm coming in too late or too haphazard.

Re: Martial Arts sub-genre settings? Think Slaine meets Lone Wolf and Cub - not sure which genre that fits (if any) but there were plenty of dead bodies... and we didn't think it too many...

Re: Guns in Fantasy Have a quick peek here for pictorial inspiration: http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_spot_combo.php

Re: Soul Calibur Voldo. The real daddy of Soul Calibur

Re: Need ideas for Steampunk Over-The-Top Game I suggest Space 1899 or Castle Falkenstein. Off the top of my head, this depends upon your start year but... The superior scientists of Imperial China have developed a small(ish) steam engine of great power and coupled it to a small(ish) version of the Babbidge Engine. One of each is installed into hundreds of lifelike bronze warriors. The Empire has an unbeatable army which has already crushed Japan. Eastern eyes are turning to the West. Chinese airships have dropped their warrior troops on San Francisco and the Western US seaboard is under attack from armoured junks using steam cannon targeted by Babbidge Engines. Western scientists have failed to analyse an intact bronze warrior or Babbidge Engine. In captured bronze warriors the steam engine overloads with explosive force, destroying the delicate workings. With time of the essence the Diogenes Club has assembled a motley crew of heroes to infiltrate the Chinese production facility and steal the blueprints to the infernal Oriental machines. Once their weaknesses are known, effective counter-attacks can begin.

Re: WWYCD (kind of): Advice Time for Scarlet! You are who you are. The opinions of others are but a distraction.