Dale A. Ward

Re: Gemini Ascendant Campaign Here's a little luck o' the Irish for 'im! Hope it helps!

Re: The Future of Small Arms

Re: Traveller Hero Update We had a house rule that you could die for real in the first 3 terms... not a hardship to start over from there. Thereafter, however, a death resulted in the character receiving a Purple Heart commendation and a single roll on the Barracks Life skill table (or its equivalent, depending on the service). Any other skills received during that term were negated. The Purple Hearts were included in the tally to calculate mustering out benefits, so it wasn't a total loss.

Re: Too much is still not enough? Amazing... even though I've actually done it, the idea of the players contributing to the campaign setting totally went over my head. I gotta rep that. Or, I will after I've spread some around. ~sigh~

Re: Gemini Ascendant Campaign I just noticed... My rep power has finally gone over 100, and my total rep received is over 10 thousand!! I'm... so proud! I may cry!

Re: Near-future space timeline I must have missed the Firefly/Serenity references... and I totally forgot about the Minority Report references. Unfortunately, I've never heard of Neuromancer.

Re: Near-future space timeline You forgot Total Recall.

Re: Too much is still not enough? This is a very subjective question, as you're not really concerned with the amount of time spent, but the quality of the results. One of my longest-running and most successful campaigns took me about two days of prep work, most of which was spent very carefully transferring a 6"x8" map onto two 3'x2' hex map sheets. The rest was deciding what tables to use for random encounter generation. On the other hand, I've had games that I carefully planned for months fall flat before the second session. I hate to say it, but the amount of time spent planning is not a major consideration. There are far too many variables. After careful thought, I've decided that the only things that really have to be planned in advance are geography and history. Everything else can wait until, perhaps, a week or two before it's needed. Honestly, if you plan too far ahead, the odds become increasingly greater that your players are going to do something that will totally negate the whole thing. Now, this is not to say that the planning is wasted. You may have to make a few small changes... a new coat of paint, file off the serial numbers, that sort of thing, and you can use that stuff somewhere down the line. My #1 rule for planning is "never throw anything away". And, yes, overplanning has bitten me hard... several times and in some very awkward places. I can honestly state that I have never used any prepackaged settings or modules in any of my own campaigns. On the few occasions when I've GMed tournaments at cons, I've used the material I was given... and, usually, hated every minute of it. I have, however, used a lot of such items as idea seeds. Basicly, my campaign setting exists as a fully actualized world and ecology only within the confines of my own mind. If the gods grant me immortality and an endless supply of paper and ink, I may... eventually... get it all down in a readable format. But, don't hold yer breath. For the most part, yes... I try to keep everything running in one genre at a time. Although, I did have a silly period in my early gaming life. The look of wicked glee on the face of a dwarf as he peeks out of the turret of an M1 Abrams is priceless. Nuf sed!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Since Shirley is a woman's name, that must make you a female troll. And, we all know that female trolls are called trollops. That would make you an English trollop... or tart. What flavor is another question altogether!

Re: Gemini Ascendant Campaign ACK!! Yeah, I completely forgot that... I'll bundle them up and get them right out. BTW, speaking of chat logs and forgetting things... did we skip a week between October 19th and November 2nd? I seem to be missing a log file for that period... did we not play on 10/26?

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous) Jock Strap HERO and the accompanying enemies book... Jock Itch, Crabs & Warts!

Re: Traveller Hero Update Cool Beans!! I can't wait!

Re: Traveller Hero Update Can you tell us anything more about these eight short PDF products? If they're something I might be interested in, I'll start saving up. I wanna do my part to help bring Traveller HERO home.

Re: Gemini Ascendant Campaign Hey, Starwolf... was I supposed to send you something? I keep thinking I've forgotten something... and I obviously have.

Re: Time travel Dr. Who style - Hero Universe ~flings his scarf over his shoulder and states with absolute certainty...~ Actually, you both heard right. You're just in different timelines.

Re: Fantasy Reproduction Just name them after your favorite Klingons... Klingonese is, after all, Galactic Orcish.

Re: Out of Print? I keep hearing that it's being reformatted (or something like that) for the new printing company. I hope they don't go the PDF only route, too. When I buy a book, dammit, I want a BOOK!

Re: Gemini Ascendant Campaign I just got reconnected about an hour ago... by accident, it appears, since the techie hasn't arrived yet. When I called tech support Saturday night, the guy looked at his readout for my system and didn't even bother trying to reset it... he just said he'd schedule a maintenance visit. So, either he was a newbie that didn't know what to do, or the situation was so bad that there was nothing he could do. Usually, they make me jump through a half dozen hoops before they give up. Anyway, it's almost 8:30 AM. The techie is supposed to be here between 8 and 11, so I'm waiting patiently. We'll see what happens later today. ************* Okay, it's 11:26. The techie just left and I have a new curse word... SQUIRRELS!! The guy replaced a piece of cable that looked like our local rodentia had been snacking for quite a while. In some spots, it was chewed all the way down to the copper core. Anyway, he said to keep an eye on the connection for a couple of days and see if there are anymore outages. If there are, he said they'd send out a team to replace all of the cabling from pole to house. Hopefully, it won't come to that. In the mean time, I'm back online.

Re: Gemini Ascendant Campaign My internet connection has been iffy all weekend, guys. Hopefully, the techie they send on Monday will be able to fix it. But, until then, I don't know how long I'll have to even finish this post. Point #1 - I'm cool with the pulp game. I'd have to say it's about three or four down on my list of favorite gaming genres, having tied with horror... but, it's tied with scifi at #1 on my list of favorite reading genres. Point #2 - I don't know if I'll be able with this connection problem, but I'd like to exchange some ideas with Nolgroth in email about what has been going on with Milo during his captivity. Point #3 - Depending on the results of #2 above, the rescue may take many more sessions to complete. At the very least, I wouldn't count on knocking it out next Thursday. Okay, that's all for now... the light is still flashing on my cable modem, so I'd better push the button now. Later, guys!

Re: Gemini Ascendant Campaign Wow!! We got fans!!

Re: The Future of Small Arms ~bows~ I'm here all week, folks... try the veal.

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero ~snicker~ I'm shuttin' up before I get myself in more trouble!

Re: Would You Assassinate the King? You commit Regis Philbin?

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero OOOOH NOOOOO!! I've actually been pwned in a trivia-related incident!! Will I ever live down the shame?!? Oh, how the mighty have fallen!! It's almost like watching Conan of Cimmeria getting his butt kicked by a street punk!

Re: Would You Assassinate the King? It sounds to me as if this king would best serve his kingdom as the centerpiece of a royal funeral... in other words, he's toast. I wouldn't hesitate a moment to off him. Of course, I'm chaotic neutral... pardon the reference.