Nyrath

Re: SF Novels for Star Hero? No problem. I thought the same thing until Jerry Pournelle mentioned it on his web site.

Re: SF Novels for Star Hero? Well, the other one you are thinking about is THE COSMIC COMPUTER aka JUNKYARD PLANET. Yes, Jerry Pournelle was given the rights to Piper's works. No, MOTE and the rest is not based on Piper. Pournelle wants to do some novels in Piper's universe, but he hasn't gotten around to it yet. MOTE has starships moving by a type of "jump" drive while Piper has ships taking prolonged periods of flight through hyperspace. MOTE has ships defended by the Langston force-field, Piper's ship have no force fields, just collapsium armor plate. MOTE has starships armed with laser cannon in addition to nuclear warheads while Piper's ships have no energy weapons at all. The culture in MOTE has a strong Roman Catholic presence, where it is conspicuous in Piper by its absence.

Re: SF Novels for Star Hero? Space Viking by H. Beam Piper. After the collapse of the Terran Federation, worlds that still have starship levels of technology found that it was easier to send Space Viking ships to raid less fortunate worlds than manufacture goods for themselves. Of course this tended to ruin the economies of the Space Viking planets but in the short run it was lucrative.

Re: Leagacy of Iron: Power Suit characters... I had an amusing powered armor character, unfortunately he was sort of a "one-trick pony". His name was Dr. Jurassic, and as you can see his armored head was based on a Triceratops, sort of a dinosaur rhino. Obviously he was a move-through artist. In an effort to gain active points (and to make interesting limits) I bought extra running with the limitation "must us all movement points" (i.e., no stopping short) and "no turning" (i.e., movement must be in a perfectly straight line). I visualized it as pulling the lawn-mower starter cable on his hip, then gang-way!! In a move-through, half of the damage inflicted on one's target is also inflicted on yourself. To deal with that, I gave the character armor that could only be used against the move-through co-damage. I visualized it as head padding. Later I added other powers, like jack-hammer horns designed to cut through armored walls, full life-support, and some kind of gizmo to aid in recovery from unconsciousness (from the old Champions "Gadgets" supplement, called an "Auto-Pepper"). I also gave him specific levels in using the powered armor suit. Even if some villain made a duplicate of the armor my character would have the edge. But like I said he was a one-trick pony. He needed plenty of skills and talents in order to give him something to do outside of combat.

I was mulling over various SF novels that would be good inspiration for Star Hero campaigns. Perhaps you can think of others. Many of these are out of print, but copies can be found at http://www.bookfinder.com The Star of the Guardians series by Margaret Weis. A Star-Wars-esque type space opera, but with sinister overtones. Example: there are laser beam swords. "Ah! Light Sabers!" But with a sinister overtone. The swords have needles in the hilts that are inserted into your palm. It seems that the swords are powered with human blood. Ick. And not just anybody's blood either, if you are not of the royal blood-line the sword will induce an incurable cancer. The Helmsman series by Bill Baldwin. A flashy space opera set in a thinly disguised re-telling of World War II, Battle of Britain and everything. Our hero is a hot-shot combat starship helmsman, but he regularly does covert missions on occupied planets, test flies experimenta Q-ships, and has a secret romance with the King's niece. Very cinematic. The Corridors of Time by Poul Anderson. A time travel novel. In the far future, two cultures are locked in combat: a matriarchal nature-oriented warrior cult and a patriarchal mechanistic military culture. They are engaged in a time war. Most major historical events back to cave man times are the results of these future cultures meddling with history in an attempt to destroy the other culture. Nifty gadgets include a "diaglossa", a sort of universal translator that fits in your ear, and an energy pistol with a built in force field. The Fires of Paratime by L E Modesitt, Jr (recently reprinted in an ominbus Timegods' World). Another sort of time travel universe. The inhabitants of the planet Query can travel through time and space with the power of their mind. So like all good parasites they live high off the hog by swiping high tech goodies from various cultures through the galaxy and through history. The main character is a young time diver named "Loki", the current head of the time divers is named "Odin-Thor". Gee, where have I heard those names before? This novel starts slow, but past halfway, you'll find it so exciting that you cannot put it down. the Retief novels by Keith Laumer. Retief is a junior operative for the Terrain Diplomatic Corps, but he has the skills of James Bond and a certain flair for action. His stories are often funny, but full of scenario ideas. the Dominic Flandry novels of Poul Anderson. Sir Dominic Flandry is an operative of the decadent Terran Empire, trying his best to enjoy the good things in life while attempting to ensure that the inevitable fall of the Empire and the Long Night of babarism happens after his lifetime. Lots of futuristic James Bond style action. Any other novels?

Re: Superhero Images

Re: Name for a Future Tech Explosive TDX (the infamous Two-Dimensional eXplosive) was, I believe, originally borrowed from James Blish's CITIES IN FLIGHT novels, specifically EARTHMAN COME HOME. IIRC H. Beam Piper's THE COSMIC COMPUTER featured an explosive with the charming name "cataclysmite". Keith Laumer's short stories had "isotopal explosives" and "tactical implosives".

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Another book I read recently that would make a great Fantasy Hero campaign is Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle. It is a quote "hard science fiction" novel unquote, if your "science" is the science of Aristole. In this universe, the Earth is at the center, there are crystaline celestial spheres, the whole nine yards.

Re: Superhero Images I actually managed to make a lead miniature for that character. I sawed the head off a charging ogre, glued on a frilled dragon head, and used tusks from an elephant as horns.

Re: Superhero Images Well, here's my ancient Champions 3.0 character: Dr. Jurassic. Obviously a move-through artist, with extra levels of running and internal armor only usable vs move-through co-damage.

Re: Generic Star Hero Galactic Map Of course you have to keep in mind that I have a weakness for three-dimensional starmaps. AstroSynthesis does that quite well, allowing one to spin the map and zoom in and out. At my request, the good folks at NBos included the ability to import ones own custom star data. AstroSynthesis also does a good job of randomly creating every planet and moon in each solar system. However, if one is just interested in a game campaign map, you can get away with a flat map. If your Star Hero campaign's FTL drive is one of those "jump-link" drives (like the game StarFire or the novel The Mote In God's Eye) a useful freeware tool is yEd. This allows one to create boxes for stars, connect them with links, then autoformat them into a pleasing arrangement.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I've been ping-ponging. I just finished Alastair Reynolds' REDEMPTION ARK (2002) for the first time and John W. Campbell's THE INCREDIBLE PLANET (1949) for the millionth time. Both are excellent. Nobody on these lists seems to have heard of The Helmsman series by Bill Baldwin. Very visual writing, you can almost imagine that you are watching a Star Wars style space opera. The background plot is lifted from the history of World War II (complete with The Battle of Britain and the miracle at Dunkirk). Space opera at its finest. It would make a great Star Hero campaign.

Re: Truely Alien Races They are a little sparse on details, but there is a list of aliens in SF sorted by type here and an alphabetical list here.

Re: Clever Future Weapons Yes, there are similar ones here

Re: Clever Future Weapons I think we've got a winner! I agree that Invader On My Back is the best. I was just looking over High's books for interesting weapons. Recky, Gun, and Shield, now those are interesting weapons. Sidekicks. Whatever. (for those who haven't read the novel, those are three defensive robots the protagonist created. IIRC Recky was disgused as a Kestrel and used sensors for reconnaissance, Gun was disgused as a Golden Eagle and had an arsenal of micro-weapons, Shield was also a Golden Eagle and could project a force wall. All three had AI and were smart-alecs)

Re: Galactic Coordinates I believe this was the system used by Isaac Asimov in his novel The Stars Like Dust, with the minor difference that he used "Rho" instead of "P" (and to tell the truth, a lower-cased Rho does look like the letter "P") For galactic north, I vaguely remember that astronomers used the old "right hand" rule, just like the physicists. Curl the fingers of your right hand and stick up your thumb. When your fingers curl in the direction of galactic spin, your thumb points north.

Re: Bullets in vacuum? I've read that the recoil from a sidearm in microgravity is over-rated. People who did the math said that if you were unbraced, a .45 automatic would only give you about three degrees per second of rotation. If you plus your suit had a mass of about 50 kilograms, each bullet would give you a measly 0.12 meters per second of acceleration. Another thing to keep in mind: a sidearm meant to be used while space suited will have to have an over-sized trigger guard to allow insertion of a space-gloved finger. More at my web site I hope this helps.

Re: Clever Future Weapons Sorry, I'm coming in very late to this thread. There were a couple amusing weapons in the novels of Philip E. High. In THESE SAVAGE FUTURIANS was a psychological warfare terror weapon called a "chase mine". It was sort of a flying robot explosive device that would jump out from ambush and wrap around your waist. At some random time in the next couple of weeks it would explode, killing you. Tampering with the mine would trigger immediate detonation. In the meantime, you were suddenly very unpopular with your fellow soldiers. And if you were killed before the mine exploded, it would detach and search for another victim. Very nasty. In THE PRODIGAL SUN was the "igniter". It would propel an exotic chemical compound in powder form along a "line of force" (i.e., using a force field instead of gunpowder). If the chemicals penetrated your skin, they would react and give an instant demostration of spontaneous human combustion. Other novels had more mundane items, like bullets that would fire around corners, bullets that would loiter until the target entered the area, microscopic missiles, and similar assassin’s weapons.

Re: Name for a Future Tech Explosive Heh. Well, I never said I could spell...

Re: Dramatic Hooks? Hmmmm, Luck. I hadn't thought of that. As Trebuchet noted, the Dramatic Hook mechanism is probably better suited for Heroic campaigns in general, and Heroic Fantasy campaigns in particular. The only think I'm leary about is the element of Game Master fiat in the Luck rules. Players do not enjoy having the survival of their characters depending on the whim of the GM, so it is probably a good idea to avoid anything resembling that. In the original Riddle Of Steel game, the designer had an ax to grind. He wanted to enforce gameplay that resembled a dramatic fantasy novel. The combat was ramped up to "Very Deadly" (looks to me like the equivalent of all attacks doing killing damage, and no resistant defenses). Entering a fight without help from one's Dramatic Hooks was tantamount to suicide. So the actual "riddle of steel" is "what is important enough for you to risk dying for?". The players answer that question when they assign Dramatic Hooks during character creation. The designer of Riddle Of Steel made the combat deadly as a sort of gameplaying darwinism. Players who do not adhere to the dramatic fantasy novel troupe have their characters die with depressing regularity. I'm not sure I want to go that far, but it might be interesting to experiment with it. Another interesting twist rewards players in another way. Dramatic Hook use is recorded and points are awarded. When a character dies, these bonus points can be used in creating the next character. This encourages players to give their characters big dramatic deaths. They are rewarded with an even better character.

I've played plenty of different RPGs, but when it comes to simulating multiple genres, the Hero system is king. As a game master, Hero gives me the tools to simulate almost anything my players can imagine. However, my problem is the opposite. As a game master, it can be difficult to come up with a unique adventure every playing session, without it falling into a rut. I guess it is a lack of imagination on my part. Anyway I was reading some game reviews when I ran across an interesting game mechanism in an RPG called "The Riddle of Steel". This is the so called "Spiritual Attribute" or "Dramatic Hook". You can find a quick run-down on this mechanism here. What naturally caught my attention is the fact that one of the side effects is having the players drive the plot instead of the game master. Or at the very least give the Game Master a clue as to what kind of game the players want. A plus for an unimaginative game master. So I'm toying with the idea of grafting the Dramatic Hook mechanism into the Hero system as a sort of house rule. I'm trying to decide what the best way to do this. The Riddle of Steel is a so called "dice pool" type game, and the Dramatic Hook give more dice to the pool. To translate this into Hero, my best guess is to have the DH grant temporary overall levels or specific levels. What do you think?

Re: Sci-fi the 60's way: Strategic Space Command Why, thank you. They haven't used the maps much yet though. Perhaps some of you can jump in and make suggestions. The mapsite is here, the map in 3-D mode is here, and the more usable "node map" of the same area of space is here

Re: Generic Star Hero Galactic Map I was rather pleased with AstroSynthesis myself. Every planet and star has a place where campaign notes can be attached, some visible to the players and some only visible to the game master. It can also output selected star systems as a large HTML file with hotlinks for use in one's PBM website. Spheres of influence can be generated, trade routes, and empires. It even comes with a dataset of actual stars out to about 20 light years. It can also generate AVI movies rotating the map in three dimensions.

Re: Name for a Future Tech Explosive Well, just to be pendantic, in "Doc" Smith's Lensman series, "heptadetonite" was the propellent of the shell, the warhead was composed of "duodecaplylatomate" or "duodec". In his Spacehounds of IPC, they had an explosive called "crystalline, pentavalent nitrogen", or N-26. The stuff from Popular Science is called Hafnium-178, there is a bit of controversy if it is for real or not.

Re: Interstellar drive The canonical list of stardrives in science fiction can be found here