Aroooo

I need some help with this. I've been muddling with this for several days, and after going through forum threads and the rules, have not found a satisfactory way to do this. So, here goes: I'm working on the B5 ships, and I think I've settled on the armor 'scale' for lack of a better descriptive. Now, all the ship's armor is Ablative (-1). This works good for similarly sized ships fighting each other. But where it breaks down is Fighters against large ships: currently the fighters can't effect the larger ships because their armor is greater than the max damage of the fighter's weapons (so no ablative degradation). For most sci-fi genres that would seem fine, but in B5 fighters always seemed to have some ability to do some damage to even large ships (at least along similar tech levels). Not all the time, or I'd just add Penetrating to every ship weapon. (This will also come into affect when I build the B5 station too.) I've thought about adding either some Activation Roll to the large ship's armors vs. certain types of attacks, or giving the large ships some form of Side Effect to their armor (i.e. Activation Roll 8- vs. damage that does not ablate armor) or ruling that if a Fighter makes a called shot (vs. a weapon mount or sensor array for example) then treat that attack as Penetrating. What does the collective think? Aroooo

A favorite saying among our group is "Never give the GM ideas." Players, esp. during casual in-game or out-of-game conversations, will usually come up with great ideas on where to take the story. I once ran a game where I put the players in downtown Chicago (pulp genre) and said "What do you want to do now?" (If any of my group is reading this, this was a long time ago, so no, that's not how you ended up going to South America .) Aroooo

OT Story I was running a published WEG Star Wars game (the title escapes me at the moment). The short version: The players were on a ship transporting medical supplies, and there were some Imperial operatives on board. The story called for the ship and the players to be captured by the Empire. At one point the PCs locked down all the escape pods so the Imperials could not escape. The fight was not going well for the PCs, so they decided to abandon the ship and set the self destruct. They figured if the Rebels could not have it, neither could the Empire. This of course was totally contrary to where the story had to go, but being a good GM, I went with the flow. In the final stages of preparation, one of the players told their R2 unit to "...release the escape pods." They wanted to unlock the pods to escape, but since R2 units can be very literal (it was a relatively new one after all), I took the opportunity to get the game back on track and literally released (launched) them. Just goes to show you how players can hinder or help the GM's story along. Aroooo

Can someone refresh my memory (it is Friday after all)? As I understand it, each increase in damage class is supposed to represent a doubling of effective output, yes? If so, how are defenses scaled (for lack of a better term) up. How many points of defense represent a doubling of the previous 'level' of def? Aroooo

Fuzion should convert back to Hero fairly easy; Fuzion having its roots in Hero. About the only thing that will cause some problems is Fuzion Kill damage. Kill damage is large scale (i.e. vehicle type) damage. After 15DC (if memory serves) damage can go to Kills. See this site for more detailed Fuzion info:http://www.mecha.com/~conkle/fuzion/ Christian's site is one of the best Fuzion resources. Aroooo

Sorry, I did mis-type. But I'm still concerned that a big ship can get away with only two masts. While there is a rule that specifies how much sail you get for X size, I didn't see anything that required Y masts for Size or amount of sails. That's why I thought there might have been a typo - not "or" or "to" but the number. I thought the progression of masts might have been 1, 2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, and so on. Aroooo

Steve, On TUV pg 58, last para left column, it states "At Sizes 9-11, a ship must have two masts; at Sizes 12-14, a ship can have two or three masts; at Sizes 15-17, a ship can have two or four, and so forth." Should it have read "...three or four"? The progression being 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6, etc? Thanks! Aroooo

Re: How To: Cerebro Another possibility is to treat Cerebro as a megascale naked power advantage, OAF, Bulky, Immovable; and maybe independent. As for the ship in orbit, I would keep it simple, and either a) give it its own Teleport (or other power) capability, or megascale NPA, usable by others, O(A/I)F, etc. Aroooo

I don't think " GM Must Approve New Powers (-1/2)" is a valid limitation. I mean, doesn't the GM have to approve VPP's in the first place? If you (the GM) have a predefined list of Force Powers written up, and those are the only powers the VPP can use (not sure if that is the case), then the "Restricted Type of Powers (Force/Mental Powers Only, -1/2)" should be all you need. Can you explain what "Max Pool = (2 x Ego) + (Int + Pre)/2 (-1/4)" means? I interpret this to be a limit on the VPP pool size (40 in your example). Is 40 the max period, or is it the max for this particular sample character? Or, does this lim. mean its the max active points in any one power in the VPP, and the pool is always 40? Otherwise, looks very interesting. Aroooo

Planning I tend to plan very little of my adventures. I prefer running 'off the cuff' so to speak. I have a general idea of plot, who the good guys and bad guys are, and what the goal is. But even then, sometimes I even leave the goal up to the players (depending on genre/game). Another tip for new GM's: when creating a new party, especially with players new to role playing or your genre (supers, pulp, sci-fi, etc.) have an initial character building session. Make sure that all the characters have ballanced skill/power sets, and that they compliment each other's abilities. Its not going to be much fun if all the characters are good combat machines, but no one can tail the bad guy's thugs to their hide-out. Make sure everyone has a role to play, and that everyone can feel special and useful to the party. And I second Fitz's tip about the die results. Aroooo

I have two copies. My really thumbed and worn copy that dates way way back, and the pristine copy I picked up at a con a few years ago just to have it as a keepsake There is a good store near me that carries a lot of older stuff. If you don't find a copy by Friday, send me a message and I'll see if they have a copy this weekend. Aroooo

Something else I don't think has been mentioned yet. No matter how well you plan an adventure, no matter how well you plan for story possibilities, your players will invariably do something completely different, unexpected, or unplanned. Once you can accept that, your GMing job will be a lot easier. Well, maybe not easier, but at least you will not suffer big heartbreaks when your players ruin your perfect game. Because, no matter what they do, there is always a way to get back. I'll tell you about the R2 unit who saved my storyline one day. Aroooo

If you have the optional -1 Ablative limitation applied to a defense, how is Reduced Penetration applied for purposes of determining if the defense is reduced 5 active points? Do you take half the maximum damage possible? Aroooo

GM Advice Hero combat can slow the pace of a game down, especially if its a supers combat. Make sure you, as GM, have a good feel for the combat rules, and don't use every little optional rule - those really slow things down. If you're unfamilar with a section, fudge the rule(s) during the combat. Any mistakes you may make will be well worth the time saved searching through FREd. On a similar note, make sure you have something for everyone to do, either in combat or out. For instance, if your group gets split in two parties, spend 5-10 minutes with one group, then spend 5-10 minutes with the other group. Bored players are the GM's worse enemy. Aroooo

I'm not sure I would do the Force the way you have it, but thats just me. If I had never played WEG's Star Wars, it would look really good - but i have to agree with Syberdwarf2 on this one. Make the "Force" a multipower framework. Bigger the pool, the stronger you are in the Force. The lower cost of the resulting slots means you can use Heroic point starting levels, and characters have a reasonable chance to improve themselves. I do agree with you that you/the GM needs to have the Force powers pre-defined before the game starts. I like the list you've come up with. If you can find a copy of West End Game's Jedi Academy sourcebook, pick it up. It has just about all the Force powers in it. Very good resource. Aroooo

Hm. Will have to read Summon again. I must have missed that. Personally, if the change in robots only occurs between games, then as a GM I would not worry about having to have Dispel/Supress. Aroooo

Come to think of it, GURPS Space also hade some good tech tables. Unfortunately, I don't have my copy handy (its at a friend's house). Aroooo

According to their web site, its 304 pages hard bound. But we'll see. Aroooo

Looks good, but I might give the STR and Fast Draw IIF only, since I'm looking at it from the mechanisms being inside the coat, not outside it. Armor though, could go either way. Aroooo

Star Hero As I recall, Star Hero did a good job breaking down tech categories/levels - in one of the side bars I think but I'd have to go get the book to verify. Aroooo

In case the link has gotten burried, here is the link for the d20 game: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/ They say its due next month, but has not been assigned an ISBN number or listed in their May release schedule. All I have to say is it better be worth $45. Aroooo

Its supposed to be released in May last I heard. I'm not a big advocate of D20, but I admit I will pick it up for the source material. May Valen forgive me Aroooo Live for the One, die for the One.

Ship Update I've added some transport ships to the list, as well as adjusted some of the armor values for the non-combat craft. Aroooo

Minor update Just an update: I've added the Centauri Fighter to the ship list. Aroooo

Re: Re: slightly off topic Now that you mention it, I do remember reading that point in the other thread. I hope the Easter candy goes away soon, I've got to get off this sugar high Aroooo