AlHazred

Doc Savage is nice, but very often he goes over the top; I tried to stat him out for my Golden Age/Pulp game, but he came in at way too many points to be a good "role model" for the players to base their characters on. Slightly more equivalent to a starting PC's power level is The Avenger, also by "Kenneth Robeson". His team is much more useful and interesting, and he is not unbeatable. In that regard, The Shadow (book version, not the radio Shadow) can be built on 250 points. Others I haven't managed to read yet are The Spider and Operator 5. Have to haunt eBay until these guys show up...

Sir, I believe it was your post I was remembering. My brain coughed it up when I was talking with a friend of mine who runs GURPS. We were lamenting the fact that players tend to get stuck in a rut, and were brainstorming ideas. We basically pooled all the most over-the-top, unusual, interesting campaign ideas we could come up with, with the goal of stringing complementary ones together to form something very different and unique. This is the idea that got us going. Many thanks for the inspiration! Roland

Could very well have been your posts. I remember there was a lot of development of the "services-oriented technology" idea. I'd be interested to hear more...

And that campaign was called...?

I don't care who wrote it, really... It's all good...

Can't beat that one, but I can come close... [Edit to remove unattractive gloating. Ego Attack - 2 points!] My father has an old 1928 World Atlas. The thing is chock full of details like industrial production, exports, etc., mixed in with the color maps. I check it every time I visit my dad in Florida, just to soak up the period...

I recall someone mentioning something about this on the old boards, but most of the details have been lost in the dim recesses of my atrophying brain... That's it. Memory fades. Can anyone tell me what this is so that I can rekindle the guttering spark?

I'd foprgotten about that project! Since you jogged my memory, I'd like to add the Automobile Green Book, which you can find periodically on eBay or other auction sites. This is a reference work put out by the Automobile Legal Association during the 20s and 30s. Billed as a Road Reference and Tourists' Guide, it contains what amount to detailed directions (called Routes) between various cities. Since signs were scarce or nonexistent in that era, references like these gave drivers the info they needed to get where they were going. It's full of old gems like period advertisements for restaurants and hotels, maps, etc. If you're going to be running a wide-ranging campaign in the era, see if you can find a copy cheap; I got mine on eBay for five bucks...

It definitely fits in superbly with everything published so far, displaying a unity and cohesion to the Hero System rules that has been sorely lacking. I am gratified to finally see some of the stuff I remember you talking about years ago (like the stuff about towed vehicles and the detailed Sailing rules) and am glad examples are given that illustrate very well the proper usage of the rules. Give yourself a pat on the back between floggings...

"I loved it. It was much better than 'Cats'. I'm going to see it again and again." In fact, it's an excellent supplement, well worth the wait. So, Bob, did the delay in the product release give you a chance to refine it to its high standard, or did you hit gold from the start?

I've run Cthulhu for years. I just didn't want to salt the pot too thoroughly... There've been a number of RPGs that cover the 20s, 30s and 40s. In addition to the ones Derek mentioned, there's TSR's Gangbusters (1982), The Adventures of Indiana Jones (1984) and Crimefighters (Dragon #47, 1981), Taupe Games' All-Adventure Action Roleplay Game (which I've never actually seen, only heard of), Fantasy Games Unlimited's Daredevils (1982), and Archon's noir (1997). I'd even include Dream Pod 9's Gear Krieg RPG (2001) and R. Talsorian's Castle Falkenstein (1994) in the mix, since they draw heavily on the pulp-genre for their action theme.

Re: Re: Martians None of the above! I wrote them up for my Golden Age Supers/Pulp Heroes campaign, set in the US in 1938, so the Martians are invading according to the timetable set by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre group. So, technically, none of the above. Really, though, they're the guys from the book. Since Welles' radio play was an adaptation of that, it seemed fitting. Besides, the Martian Fighting-Machines are lethal enough against 250-point heroes. I'm currently in the process of rewriting the Fighting-Machine and Handling-Machine based on suggestions from The Ultimate Vehicle, much like I revised my Martians based on Star Hero.

I would also honor Captain (later Sir) Samuel Vimes, originally a dispirited cop and alcoholic in Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!. Making the drug dealer a real person who has fallen makes him more interesting than a simple cutout.

History of Superman on the Web... More Supes goodness: http://theages.superman.ws/History/Version0.php That's a good site for Superman fans overall. One of the links on that page leads to scanned copies of Jerry Siegel's original preproduction cartoon strip which is interesting reading; it's cool to see what was in the original concept and what was added by later writers. And for good measure, I'll throw in a link to Mike Surbrook's Superman adaptation based on the original 1938 comic. Although written in 4th edition, it holds up really well under 5th edition rules, up to and including its 250-point total cost (Steve suggests this level for Golden Age supers).

Hmmm... He must have started doing that after I got to you guys... He signed mine with "Best wishes!" Wish I had had more time to hang with you guys... Anyway, I hope you'll pardon me, but the best autograph I got was when the Pelgrane Press guys took my (used) copy of the Dying Earth RPG and gave me a shrinkwrapped copy signed by the author, development team and Jack Vance, who happens to be one of my favorite authors ever! Sorry. I still can't believe my good luck. And in the first two hours of the Con, too!

Since I started running a Pulp Hero game, I realized how many resources are available for 5th Edition modern that don't really apply to the Pulp setting. I've done most of the work I needed to do for my campaign already (just need to get Weapons and Vehicles out of the way) but I thought it would be a good idea to ask other people what resources they found to work for Pulp Hero. For the purposes of this topic, I'll define the Pulp setting as: the setting of the Pulp magazines of the 20s, 30s and 40s. A time when heroes took care of problems the two-fisted way, science was promising everybody flying cars in twenty years, and a dollar would buy you five gallons of gas, a shirt or a night in a dingy hotel. I'll start. Hero Games produced a game by Aaron Allston called Justice Inc. which had rules for running "pulp adventurers." It was pretty good, and the Talents which it let you buy made it into the 4th Edition rulebook, but it's somewhat outdated now. It's chock full of two-fisted crimebusting. There was an adventure published for it, called Trail of the Golden Spike, also by Aaron Allston. I haven't seen it, so I don't know how good it is. Lands of Mystery, also by Aaron Allston (note the pattern), was billed as an Adventure Sourcebook "designed to be used with all Hero System games," but the stereotypes it lists have a definite Pulp feel. The supplement covers "lost worlds" adventures. Highly recommended. I've found Dany St. Pierre's Hero Pulp website to have some nice info in it. Note that it has absolutely nothing to do with Aaron Allston. Dany's got some interesting ideas and some things I'd do differently, but I'd recommend his page as a starting point. Hasn't been updated in a while, though. Don't know how long it'll remain... That's all I can remember off the top of my head.

Beat me to it... I play in a Rifts HERO game, but we're only using the setting. The buildup is the PCs are a small military unit from 2015 who are sent to do crowd control in some rioting city (can't remember which one it was). Anyway, we're flying the copter there, when we enter a rift (they had just started showing up). We ended up in the Rifts world, not sure whether or not it was ours. It's been a blast so far. Can't wait to see where it's going...

Actually, it was mostly compatible with 4th edition Hero. That's why I made the mistake. Although, thankfully, some of the more clunky rules did not make the cut into Hero 4th.

I found a firearms hobbyist's page which includes some actual statistics from his experience with some early firearms, namely a Pedersoli LePage Percussion Single Shot Pistol, a Hege Manton .44 Flintlock Single Shot Pistol, a Euroarms .44 Rodgers & Spencer Revolver, and a Sharps Long Range Rifle. The numbers pretty much confirm my impression, namely that the low Muzzle Velocity estimates given to black powder firearms in some books are based on unwarranted assumptions. Sure, ball rounds shed velocity much faster than jacketed ammo. Sure, the velocity will be dependent on how much powder you put in the weapon. But you can still do some significant damage with one. I mean, these are the secret weapons that brought about the demise of armor. Assuming lower lethality than modern ammo is a little weird; dead is dead...

Those were two really good links. Especially helpful are the links from the EMF site. I like "Gunhoo!" I've finally digested the article mentioned above. It's a good overview of several theories of ballistics, and debunks them all. I have to agree with the author's assessment, that, essentially, the size of the hole is the best estimate of lethality in a round. It seems intuitively obvious now, but it's good to have something to back it up. Unfortunately, as the author himself states, "round-nosed bullets may vary considerably in performance and I [the author] have been unable thus far to correlate this performance to any consistent feature of geometry..." Since all ball bullets used in black powder weapons and most rounds used in modern small arms are rounded or pointed, his formulas aren't much use.

Having played in a Rolemaster Shadow World campaign, I got the chance afterward to look over the Hero System stuff. ICE did try to make their products usable to both Rolemaster and Hero players, but the strong Rolemaster influence of the source material is impossible to ignore in the Hero material they present. I would definitely restat everything if I ran it. Fortunately, the setting is very well described and developed. At some point ICE produced BladeStorm for tactical battle resolution, and set it in an isolated section of Kulthea. That stuff is also interesting, and worth getting if you find it in the bargain bin.

I own the 4th edition and 5th edition versions of UMA, NH, SH, Bestiary, and Champs U. I agree with the general consensus on UMA and NH, so I won't go into depth. The new ones rock. The old Bestiary was hit-and-miss when it came to creature writeups. Some of them didn't have a lot of abilities the creature should have had. The math was wrong on a lot of them. As far as production values go... If you have the 4th edition Bestiary, look at the stats block of the Ghoul. Looks a little odd, don't it? Now, turn back one or two pages (don't have my book in front of me) and look at the same location on the right-hand page for the stats block of the Faerie. Looks similar, huh? That's the kind of production values you can find throughout the book. A good concept, but poorly executed, in my opinion. The new Bestiary is very well done. They really didn't just cut-and-paste material. All of the creatures were obviously gone over and checked versus each other for consistency. The template system is well-executed. The summary in the back is handy (brought to mind the summary section of the old D&D 1st Edition Monster Manual). Options presented in a consistent fashion. A great book overall. The 4th edition Star Hero was a terrible product. I can't think about it without cringing. Dumbass assumptions, bad ideas, poorly developed background... The list just goes on and on and on... The new Star Hero is another great supplement. I'll admit I was worried they were going for that before Fantasy Hero, but it's really well done. I'll be actually using the material, which is not something I thought would happen. Definitely unique among Gaming Products in the depth of coverage on topics most such supplement don't discuss. Highest grade. Hope that helps.

I hear the weapon is better than other .50 caliber weapons because it's a Magnum round. I want to know how they fit him in there...

Yup. But since vehicles and bases have so many rules in common, I'm interested to see how the big object plays out. If you're going to be a stickler, I'll have to model the Valley Forge from Silent Running.

FWIW, I may have answered my own question. My initial question came about because I doubted a "reference" I have which lists no bibliographic material, but lists all black powder Muzzle Velocities as "ca." As I had said, I've seen a number of sites with anecdotal numbers that may or may not be right that refute this book. Anyway, today I came across this post. It lists a number of black powder loads: Cartridge Muzzle Energy Muzzle Velocity Bullet Weight (foot-lbs.) (feet/second) (grains) ----------------- ------------- --------------- ------------- .31 Black Powder Revolver 70 795 50 $ .36 Black Powder Revolver 216 1097 81 $ .44 Black Powder Revolver 326 1032 138 $ .45 Colt Black Powder 368 814 250 H .44 Colt Black Powder 523 1281 144 + .58 SSK black powder 2201 1150 750 G6 But more importantly, it has references: $ Lyman Black Powder Handbook (1985) H Handguns '91 + Other assorted publications G6 Gun Digest, 1986 The "Lyman Black Powder Handbook (1985)" is actually The Lyman Black Powder Handbook. Middlefield, CT: Lyman Products for Shooters, 1975 (Ed., C. Kenneth Ramage). I found it on Abebooks and have placed an order. More later.