Markdoc

wow: the thread returns from the dead - and even more astonishing it's back on topic. Anyway: regarding aluminum. I can't recall that it was ever used as money (just not enough of it, I guess) but pre-electric arc furnace, it was valuable. Bismark had a helmet made of aluminium: it was relatively light and looked snazzy (being highly polished) - but most importantly it showed he was steenkin' rich. When the Washington monument was finished, it got a cap of silver and gold, surrounded by platinum spikes, capped with a little pyramid of that most valuable of metals - aluminium. As to the reason that gold was used as a trade good and then evolved into money: it's has not got that much to do with the fact that it's rare (although that helps, obviously: you can't make money out of stuff that people can just easily collect) but because it is pretty. Cowrie shells were used as money too for the same reason - they made good jewellery. But they weren't particularly rare - just rare enough that you couldn't go out and get a bushel whenever you felt like it. Gold (and silver) had the advantage of being easily identified, easily portable and long-lasting: plus you could make cool stuff out of it. After all, in the early days, money was just another barter item - early coins were often cut into bits to "make change" cheers, Mark

The problem with Trigger is that makes it a one time thing. Sure, it goes off when the first teleport is tried, but if the wizard tries again 1 phase later, he's off. Go for suppress, as suggested. Relatively few teleports are over 63 points, so that should stop most things. Also, the big teleports are generally for multiple people, very long range, etc. So suppress would degrade their effectiveness, whereas dispel either works or not. As a GM, I like the idea of the wizard trying to teleport in with 20 heavily armed thugs and only having enough points that he goes - but no-one else arrives with him. cheers, Mark

>>>Which is why #4 is the one that appeals to me most. #1 appeals to me the least.<<< Sometimes to formulate the question is to know the answer! Though personally, I'd go the #1 route. cheers, Mark

Of course in that case there will be an infinate number of adventurers chasing these items. The dimension police will never be able to catch them all. Unless... of course, there will be an infinate number of dimension police too! Gee, it's getting awfully crowded in here.... cheers, Mark

>>>The only problem with the bigger bada** scenario in any genre is what about the other characters who are built within the balance of the game. Your villian, unless you cheat blatantly, will snot everyone not built to the level of the uber char.<<< Eggsactly! And I've played in games where the characters were grossly unbalanced. If everyone is mature, good roleplayers (and that happened to be the case in at least one of these instances) then it can work - for a little while. But eventually most people get tired of always playing second string - and then the campaign dies. If you have one or two players who don't fit that mature profile then be prepared for things to get ugly pretty damn fast. You can see this effect at work even in the sample team presented in FH - one character's backstory has her coming to the rescue of the party's mage (who uses the spell multiplier system). It made me laugh when I read it: any foe she could tackle would be about as dangerous as box of fluffy kittens to that mage! cheers, Mark

>>> I have HQ and it does add plenty to Glorantha; the magic is everywhere in the world. I also like the ideas about Heroquesting and I think it wouldn't be that hard to adapt especially to a Hero sytem game since it does scale up easier than RQ does.<<< Got it in one, my man! The old RQ rules are kind of kludgy - especialy as we use a fusion of 2nd Ed. and 3rd ed. rules. I'm used to them, so that's no biggie. But funnily enough, RQ has never really had good rules for Heroquesting and since I wanted to run a side campaign where heroquesting would be a major element, a conversion was clearly called for. cheers, Mark

The magic multiplier is a pretty hideous kludge in itself - the thought of being able to combine it with a multipower or other framework is simply too awful to even contemplate. EC would be particularly horrible - you could easily build "Uberman, Slayer of Gods" on 150 points! Cheers, Mark

>>> How Robin Laws keeps coming up with all this brilliant stuff is as much of a mystery to me as how Hero games keeps up with its schedule.<<< Different tastes, I guess: one reason for writing the conversion notes was that we played with the Heroquest rules and found them so intolerably icky that they simply were not an option. What exactly does "Meaningful Glare 17" or "Find Another Way 12" mean anyway? Robin Laws has stated repeatedly that he sees the system as just a general guide to the Storyteller/GM: in other words, the GM decides what suits the situation at hand. Just a tad too arbitrary for my tastes. I passed up the Dying Earth sourcebook, depite my love of the books because of the unusable system. OTOH - Laws keeps writing books so maybe I'm in the minority cheers, Mark

Well, to be fair, cumulative body leading to impairment IS more realistic. But in that case, you should also use cumulative damage for disabling. After a few stiff fights, your players will have to retire, limping and incontinent from all the injuries they have suffered. In real life , you very rarely get an arrow (or other pointy object) through a part of your body and then a) continue to use the body part and regain full function after a week or two. Otherwise we wouldn't have physio departments in all our hospitals. Frankly, I yet to regain full function in my right hand, where I took 2 or 3 BOD 34 years ago... So... the rules as written, are not totally realistic, but they are designed to let characters pursue a danger-filled existence week after week. As for tracking body totals location by location, we still play Runequest, where this is required and it is really a pain. Far more book-keeping than I care for. So it's up to you. It will make combat far nastier, but if you (and your players) want that, then go for it. cheers, Mark

Yeah, although it's plain that the Peter Jackson style Legolas could take the entire round table from excalibur without even mussing his hair. Speaking (more or less) of Peter Jackson, we got to see him here recently. My, he looks like a hobbit! cheers, Mark

IIRC, the rules on disabling or impairment say "if an attack" does the requiite damage, which suggests one hit, no stacking. This makes good sense to me: otherwise you have to track body location by location, which while realistic is a pain in the location 5. cheers, Mark

Hey Bryce, we're talking about an item from the Slayers OVA: common sense is not an option. As to the item itself, although it was supposed to cut through anything, often it didn't, so you could probbaly just treat it as a whacking big HKA, (say 6d6) with the -1/2 limitation on the first 4 d6 "Only to neutralise non-magical DEF". That way it would cut stone and steel as easily as flesh, but still only do sword damage - pretty nasty sword damage, it's true, but you would make a sword sized hole rather than blowing things into flinders when you hit them. Cheers, Mark

worked for me - it was pretty funny. We already did the "What sort of DEX does Legolas have anyway" discussion about 30 seconds after the movie. cheers, Mark

5d6 RKA gradual? Damn, that'd burn pretty good holes in castle walls... "Trebuchets? What for? We have these!" (holds up a quiver of fire arrows) Personally, I just allow players to add a 1 pip ERKA (1 continuing charge, 1 minute) to their arrow and give them a -4 OCV (after all, you have a heavy burning thing on the end of your arrow...) which more or less balances the points out. 1 pip RKA allows fire arrows to set fire to dry stuff like end-of-summer grass or thatching, or cloth - like sails. It also means they can't set fire to things like solid wood - which of course they can only do in hollywood movies. You can try this at home Take a piece of cloth, wet it down with your favorite accelerant and then light it and hold it firmly against a solid piece of wood. Repeat as many times as is necessary to reassure yourself that the wood is not going to burst into flames.... After all, wet skins (DEF1 or 2 at most) were considered pretty good fireproofing. If you really want to set the siege engine on fire dump oil or tallow on it and THEN shoot a fire arrow into it. As for Bazza's question, I like to know the numbers so 1) I can work out what's reasonable, 2) the players know what's possible so they don't plan on covering their escape by turning the great hall into an inferno by firing a fire arrow into one of the supporting beams... and 3) so that it's balanced. I don't want fire arrows being used routinely so that players see it as free way of getting a 1 pip energy attack. Cheers, mate Mark

A word or two if you want to use multipowers: if the restrictions you listed are all required, all spells will have them, in wich case the multipower reserve will too. In that case a 50 active point MP casts 9 points - add in 11 50-active point spells at 1 point each and you get mucho power for 20 points. OTOH, if all spells require concentration, gestures and incantations - plus can't wear metal armour - then having the 3d6+1 HKA white-hot palm o' death spell is not such a campaign unbalancer: it will rarely be used in combat, but instead for burning holes in gates and castle walls. My suggestions: drop "can't be used in metal armour" and instead simply inflict encumbrance penalties on magic skill rolls. If the swordfighter gets encumbrance penalties to use his word - but gets no points for that - then it seems fair to do the same with the mage. The effect will be similar. Secondly, drop "must be associated with caster's element (fire, water, darkness, death, etc" and simply say to use a MP you have to have a style of magic. That way a mage who wants flight (air magic) AND firevblast (fire magic) will have to buy two MPs. It gives a bit more variability, plus GM control. That way you end up with required limitations: Gestures, incantations, concentration (1/2 DCV), expendable focus (components), requires skill roll, side effect (varies on element & spell), extra time, full phase (-3 1/2) Using a setup like that with multipowers means mages will be powerful and flexible, but still at risk from a brave, skilled or simply muscular swordswinger. Cheers, Mark

Well, that should give Steve a head start on The Turakian age, volume 1 of 12.... cheers, Mark

>>>I'm making all magic-wielding characters in my campaign use a Multipower for their spells and power them from an END reserve. This gives them the ability to buy decent-powered spells for 1 to 3 points each ... but limits them from getting spells that are too powerful because they have to spend the points on the Multipower reserve and the END reserve first. I haven't done a lot of playtesting yet ... but I'm interested to see how it'll turn out.<<< I've done this for years: it works well for me since I hate the idea of mountain-destroying PC wizards, but like the idea of wizards with a lot of flexibility/power. However, if the spells are all heavily limited, the reserve can often take the same limitations (gestures, incantations, focus etc), which means that spell-users can still be quite powerful, at a low to medium points level. I have handled this in my my game by requiring all spells to take certain limitations, so that spell-casting is very, very difficult in combat. You may want to consider something along these lines unless you want all characters to use some degree of magic. As for the idea that points spent on magic get this freebie cheapening it was (I think) an attempt to simulate the the multipower effect without the limitations (and therefore balance) of a multipower. It's a really, really terrible idea and I've already redlined it out in my copy of FH. Cheers, Mark

Here's a favourite "weird-but-useful" spell. I actually lifted the original idea off the net (one of the net spellbooks for Dee'endee IIRC) ================================== FUTURE SELF This spell is a very strange temporal conjuration. It causes a future self of the caster to appear at a place to which the caster is traveling and make arrangements for his arrival. The caster must be able to reach the place to which the double is sent within the time allotted, or else the spell will fail. So, if a caster, planning a trip, casts future self and is then detained past his arrival date, the spell will fail (and the side effect will be invoked). The destination could be a city, village, town, or trading post, or even an isolated person's house. Even if the caster has no idea what exact business he has to do or at what inn he will stay, the double will "know" and will have spoken to the right people and made the right arrangements. Therefore, when the caster arrives and enters an inn, the caster's preferred overnight arrangements will have been worked out; people with whom the caster wishes to speak with or trade with will meet him at the time the caster realizes he needs to speak or deal with them. The arrangements cannot be spread over a time period of more than one day. The caster must "set aside" an amount of money in a specially prepared, sealed pouch or box upon the spell's casting, and it is in a state of flux until the events play themselves out, at which point the proper change will be left in the container at the end of the spell's duration. Purchases or accommodations costing more than the reserved funds will simply be reserved by the double, unless the caster will not be able to afford them (ack! strangeness!). The double will only be seen by the people with which transactions or business arrangements are made, since it is weaving back and forth through time, and so does not "exist" in any other localities in the area. After the expiration of the appointed day of arrival, the caster will "disappear" briefly - during which time he is making his previous arrangements. Since time is irrelevant here, this allows him time to travel great distances, find strangers etc. However, if the spell fails, either through delay or miscasting, the caster will find things gone mysteriously awry - his arrangements will not be made, and enemies may be ready to greet him, he may have mysteriously incurred the wrath of a powerful figure, aged several years etc. He will only learn how these occurrences were triggered at the end of the appointed day, after his brief "disappearance". Power: Extradimensional travel (through time, a variety of set dates) Specific Modifiers: Side effect (peculiar happenings, -1/2), OAF, enchanted cashbox (-1), Extra time (5 minutes, -2), Only to make arrangements - caster is instantly returned to site (-1). Active Cost = 50 points; END Cost: 5; Magic Roll: -5; Casting Time: 5 minutes. ================================== Cheers, Mark

There's two possible approaches you could take here: if you want to use the European enlightenment as a background, then I would suggest keeping magic relatively low-powered and/or difficult - in that case, it becomes a suitable topic for research by the leading minds of the day. The church's position (whether Protestant or Catholic) is probably fairly negative, but there were dissenters in both camps (for example, book and magician-burning Inquisitors acting under royal writ in Spain, book-writing, magic-studying dissidents operating under royal protecion in Paris). You can essentially use the real historical model, since people at the time DID believe magic worked - so we know how they would have behaved if it actually did. On the other hand, if magic is reasonably reliable and powerful (fireballs and so on) then Europe is unlikely to have evolved in a way as to give anything approaching the historical pattern - there may not even be a Christian church. In that approach you could either use the European model and just alter history as you see fit, or use an enlightenment-style setting in a world of your own design (there are appealinga spects of either approach). Anyway, of more practical use: 1) Yes, fencing as a martial art is certainly appropriate 2) I would recommend reading: The Dragon Waiting: A Masque of History by John M. Ford. It's a bit earlier than the period you discuss but the atmosphere of "magic as science" would probably be exactly right. 3) See "La pacte des Loupes" - slightly later than the period you want, but hey, who can resist a period drama kung fu monster movie? As Mike Surbrook stated, it's an under-rated genre It also has a nice feel for magic/enlightenment cross-over 4) Check out the late medieval/renaissance-era magic system I wrote up here: http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/Grimoire/magic_systems.htm#Medieval%20Magic It might be of use to you. cheers, Mark

Actually I have the old hero bestiary and bought the new one and thought "Well, OK, it's nice to have, but there's not much new here" So buy it by all means, but I would not put it on the must-have list like FH, for example. cheers, Mark

>>> This is easily fixed. Just give each character the same numbers as they would normally get with the speed chart when rolling the d12. For example, a speed 1 character would only go when a 7 is rolled. A spd 2 character would go when a 6 or 12 is rolled. A spd 3 character would go when a 4, 8, or 12 is rolled. Etc.<<< That would work, I think. One of my players suggested it long ago, but I have never tried it, since the "problem" with slower characters has never actually led to in-game problems - it's more a theoretical consideration. In the last session, I got an good example of why I like the random system, though. One player said something like: "If we ambush them, we can probably cut the scouts down and then run for cover before their archers even get a chance to fire" Note he didn't say "We get a free action for surprise on 12, and they don't get to act until phase 4, so we can attack, get a recovery, and then full move into cover on 3 without risk" In the event, they elected to hide and let the scouts pass by because of the *possibility* of getting fired on. I like that. I realise others may not. Ya pays ya money and takes ya chances. cheers, Mark

Hi Y'all, Realms messaged me that all this was going on, so I felt maybe I should respond First off, I'm intimately familiar with the stat.s - of course I ran the analysis before deciding to change things like this. And yes, each roll is a segment. I am well aware that even with a D12 it does not come out precisely the way it will using the chart. So the people who are arguing against a total match are right. OTOH, it is close enough for my purposes. Secondly, it's also true that lower speed characters will NEVER get an action when a higher speed character cannot act - unless they hold an action. This to my mind, is one of the weaknesses of the system - perhaps the only significant one (at least to me). OTOH, they're still more likely to get more phases than their actual SPD score compared to higher SPD characters, so that balances off - especially as you use a smaller die. The rest of the charges are all true, M'lud But, uh, the point was that those changes are the way it was SUPPOSED to work. I know that some people really like the structured SPD chart. Well, more power to you. I did too, for years. But after a while, it simply seemed too "wargamey" to me, and after a while my players got experienced enough to work the SPD chart in wierd ways. And when I played, I did the same. I dunno, it just kind of left a sour taste. So this is one alternative. Personally I like the randomness, which seems a little more realistic, and It IS faster - you can take my word for this. Both in my hands and those of others. If everyone watched the speed chart and remembered their held actions and so on, it probably wouldn't be. But as it stands, I don't need to track the SPD chart myself, only held actions, and that saves me a lot of time. The other advantage is that it seems to hold the players' attention better and it's dead simple to teach. But I am well aware it's not for everyone. My biggest concern was that it would downgrade the desirability of SPD, but just as before, the need for SPD was one of my players most pressing concerns, so it certainly has not had any appreciable effect on game balance - at least in my games and those I have played in, using this system. It also effects the safety of maneuvers like haymaker and sweep, but abuse of those two was something I wanted to eradicate, so I count that as a plus. So as final note: the system has been playtested by many GM's - at least a dozen, to my knowledge - over about 13 years. If you like the SPD chart by all means use it - it is the official way to play, after all. But if (like me) you find it oppressive, this is one simple and relatively robust way to avoid it - without messing with the character creation rules. cheers, Mark

I think the truth is in between the two things. Rome really did "fall" in that it went from being the capital of a huge empire to being a large city with significant burnt-out areas. Local power moved to Ravenna, imperialpower move dto Constantinople. The disappearance of the legions also made a differnce - though not as much as you might think. Even at its height Rome only fielded 35 legions. That's less than 200,000 men to hold down all of Europe, the middle east and North Africa - an area with a population in the range of 20-40 million. The myth of the legion was as important as the fact, and when Rome was sacked, that myth went "poof!" But Storn's friends are also right - the local barbarians who moved in did not do so in huge numbers, in contrast to the population that were already there. They did however grab a lot of the best stuff (castles, grazing land, people's daughters). Many historians point to this as one of the underpinnings of the feudal system: the grafting of the Germanic system of blood oaths onto an existing system of civitas. I think it is one of the important reasons European civilisation developed as it did: it divorced the bulk of the nobility from the church - especially outside Italy. Previously the nobles provided the upper ranks of the church as well. The seperation between church and state did not arise in Williamsburg - it's a direct outgrowth of the battle between kings with Germanic roots and a papacy with largely Italian ones. Some cities, such as Vence, flourished under the Romans, became briefly independent - and flourished, fell under the control of the Lombards - and flourished, became independant and kept on flourishing...until the focus of trade moved to northern France in the late middle ages, at which point it shrivelled away (It's still there, though as are many roman buildings) So "Dark ages" probably is a myth. Some areas, primarily in Italy, suffered catastrophically - invasion, loss of income and food. The European population continued to grow - it wasn't until 1000 AD that deforestation started to definitively outstrip forest growth and it had never done that under the Romans. But with the fall of Rome (which I don't think is a myth), the old western empire fragmented. That did not stop technological development or trading or lots of other things. But it did lead to increased internal war, slower transmission of goods and ideas, etc. cheers, Mark

Actually the Edda is composed of two parts. The poetic edda - sometimes called Saemund's Edda, after the apocryphal compiler, contains 15 poems dealing (mostly) with incidents from norse myth. Its date of compilation is unknown, but it is thought to be about 1250. The prose edda was compiled - not written - by Snorri Sturlsson about 1200. We assume the material is much older, but we have no way of knowing how much. Snorri was both a christian and a churchman - it is known that he altered some of the stories, but we don't know how much or precisely where. Since both collections were compiled long after the adoption of christianity, it is quite possible that the "christian" elements were added to make them more palatable to the authorities. As far as we can tell, the largest part of the prose edda (The Deluding of Gylfi) took fragments of norse lore and set them within a wholly made-up frame story specifically to make them acceptable to the church elders - and it is The Deluding of Gylfi which includes the references to a new world after Ragnarok. cheers, Mark

Yep. To someone living in say, Provence, having all these huge hairy people stomping through your garden, kicking the heads off your garden gnomes (Vandals!) and peeing in your fish pond, the period after the collapse of the western Empire probably seemed like the Dark Ages. To someone living in Southern Arabia, the same era was the beginning of "Let the good times roll!" And to someone living in Lithuania the entire thing would have seemed much of a muchness. A good example: here in Scandinavia, the tenant farmers of the 1700's - the so-called era of enlightenment were in general poorer, and less well nourished than the peasant farmers of the so-called dark ages, a thousand years before... cheers, Mark