Kharis2000

This one comes to you guys with a dual nod to BigJackBrass and my wife, Mary Ann, for making it possible. She located it off a link on the the NAGS society website BigJackBrass provide a link to in his "I feel like a Pneu man... " post.

http://www.stangrist.com/library.htm

He's got articles on subterranean tunnels in the Andes, lost cities in the Amazon, giant monkeys in the South American jungles, and more.

I don't know that I'd reccommend dropping 50.00 for his 'treasure hunting system as the frequent advertisements want you to, but the ideas were worth ignoring them.

Re: Early Pulp Classics

The older Tom Swift books have always held a special place for me since my father's copy of 'Tom Swift And His Sky Train' was the first 'pulp' work that I read as a child - in some ways, that experience is to blame for my fascination with it still.

On another note, I did not know that about the TASER acronym - very cool indeed!

Re: Classic Sci-Fi Novels for Scenario Ideas

I think that the Paratime books would, indeed, fall in the Star Hero bracket. They're certainly science fiction, although with an interesting twist that allows you to, say, drop a Pennsylvania State Trooper into a medieval-style America run by a gunpowder theocracy.

Re: help with 3 pt Ma levels, please

I tend to restrict the use of 3-point CSL's to styles that players have met the requirements for the 'Style Disadvantage" in: ie, they have the skills listed for each style as necessary to 'know' the style. That cuts down on some of the 'buy six maneuvers and call it a style' problems in my games.

Re: Help with Islanders

If you have the time (and a slightly masochistic bent) I reccommend Bronislaw Malinowski's "Argonauts of the Western Pacific" highly. It's got a tremendous amount of detail in it, but suffers by being written in a very dated 'voice.'

Try your local public or university library.

For GMs and players looking for visual inspiration for Asian-themed characters or games, here's a link to 100-odd images from Zhang Ziyi's new film "The Banquet" set in a fantasy historic China.

http://helloziyi.us/Movies/banquet-ye-yan-gallery.htm

Enjoy!

Re: Asian Bestiary- Opinions?

Imminently usable with Pulp Hero (I will be doing do this coming weekend in fact).

There are, of course, creatures that don't make a lot of sense to stack up against a group of Pulp Heroes as adversaries, either due to more-or-less benevalent natures or power sets that would make any fight short-lived for the heroes without the introduction of serious military hardware (if even then in some cases), but that's to be expected.

A must, however, is going to be a PC/NPC in the game that has the appropriate Knowledge Skills to tell everyone when to run.

Re: why the UNITED NATIONS? (for global super-agency)

To be honest, I always thought that the choices was made for one or more of the following three reasons:

1) Recognition. People know who and what the United Nations is. It's a well-known, familiar organization, something that cannot be said for Interpol.

2) Size. The UN is a large monolithic agency, with the (theoretically, anyway) funding and staff to support something like UNTIL. Certainly more so than Interpol, which has a budget and staff that's smaller than most individual departments within the UN. (Heck, the UN may employ more translators than Interpol has field agents based on what I know of the two agencies.)

3) History of Military Power. If the hypothetical agency was supposed to do nothing more than investigate crimes, then Interpol might have been a good choice. Unfortunately, it's also supposed to fight the bad guys, and Interpol simply has no history to support making it into an agency that should weild what is, frankly, more military power than a fair number of UN member nations have. The UN has, checkered though it may be, a history of UN Peacekeeping Forces which, although donated by member nations, still operate under the UN banner.

I can, of course, be so far off in left field with any or all of those ideas that I can't even see the stadium (much less home plate). YMMV, as always.

Re: Have you used anything from the Asian Bestiaries?

Update on my earlier post in this thread:

After some reading, what the player (who, thankfully, doesn't frequent the boards) in my Pulp Hero game is going to have sent after him by the evil brother of his houseboy 'Chang' is a pair of Foo Lions (possibly three or four, depending on the way the rest of the scenario this event occurs in is going).

The tong the evil brother (henceforth 'EB') belongs to has several creatures that will come to right wrongs done to members or oppose other supernatural entities as part of an ancient agreement that dates back to before the organization became more criminally-oriented. Recently the spirits have only been called when there was a clear-cut case of a tong member being victimized by someone the tong could not reach, or when a supernatural threat appeared, to prevent the breaking of the pacts by asking them to perform an evil act.

Since EB is convinced that a wrong has been done (who would really believe that the PC would run around the world for five years with his 'houseboy' after snatching them out of the tong's dungeons (the sister had previously disguised herself as a boy in a failed attempt to avoid an arranged marriage and offered to help the PC escape), including living in the same house with them, and *not* take advantage of the situation?), he'll call on the Foo Lions to make things right by killing the PC and bringing his sister home. The Foo Lions will dutifully head off after the PC.

From that point, things can go in all sorts of directions. The party might succeed in killing the Foo Lions without ever knowing what's going on (there have been no less than seven attempts on the PC by various tong hatchet men from the EB's tong and allied groups). The Foo Lions may figure out that the sister has *not* been dishonored and write the whole thing off as a misunderstanding. 'Chang' the houseboy's secret may be exposed, or may survive to be exposed at a later point. Or some combination of the three.

Complicating this is the fact that outside of 'Chang' (an NPC) there's only one PC with any real knowledge of Chinese mysticism, and he may not be able to make the game. 'Chang,' for obvious reasons, is going to be reluctant to reveal any real knowledge of what's going on.

The scenario will run over Memorial Day weekend, so I'll update folks after that on how it fell out.

For a look at materials dating back to the age of the pulps and a bit later, either for reading pleasure of idea mining, take a look at:

http://durendal.org:8080/books.html

Durendal has a large collection of public domain works (cleared by Project Gurenberg) that includes a growing set of the original Tom Swift series from 1910 through the mid 1930's, updated as the works come into public domain.

Other highlights are some early sci-fi by writers like E.E. 'Doc' Smith, John W. Campbell, and more.

They have a minimum of page images for all of the works they archive, and provide links to Project Gutenberg e-texts and the few items still in print where available. The Tom Swift series is a standout, in that it has page scans, HTML text, ASCII text, PG HTNL text, zlib cspotrun Palm doc, Rocket ebook, and iSilo 2.0 formats for the texts that they have.

Take a look - the early Tom Swift novels pretty much have an entire adventure contained in just their titles alone: Tom Swift and His Magnetic Silencer, Tom Swift and His Sky Train, Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, etc.

For folks looking for material to base scenarios off of (or just a good read), I direct your attention to:

http://durendal.org:8080/books.html

They have a growling selection of public-domain works (cleared through Project Gutenberg) by classic sci-fi writers like John W. Campbell, Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Murray Leinster, E.E. 'Doc" Smith, H. Beam Piper, Lester del Rey, and more. Some of these have been out of print for so long that even avid readers in the 70's may have missed them. (H. Beam Piper, especially, has a lot of good material built around a universe without energy weapons but with hyperdrive and contragravity. Little Fuzzy and it's sequels are a campaign into themselves.)

Durendal provides page images, and where possible, links to the Project Gutenberg e-texts and/or links to purchase the books where they are currently available.

Read. Enjoy. Mine for ideas. These writers are the giants that modern science fiction stands on the shoulders of.

Re: NBC's "Heroes"

I think that John has the right phrase for it: "train wreck."

Television has, over the years, failed utterly to present a non-animated show that dealt with metahumans/superheroes/whatever in a consistent, quality manner before Smallville (and Smallville works, in many ways *because* it features familiar characters who eschew public displays of power and is set around a deliberately small, focused setting). All of the previous attemps have, essentially, descended into camp from the outset or flirted with it strongly (The Flash tried to avoid this, but was killed because of issues that included poor writing and the revelation that it's star was gay, causing a network administration freakout).

Looking at the show as it stands in presentation material, it appears to me that it's too spread out and unfocused, with characters and associated storylines scattered all over the world. Also, by deliberately setting the show in 'the real world' they've eliminated most of the superheroic trappings: costumes, super-villains, high technology, etc.

Indeed, the powers they've chosen to assign to people also seem geared specifically to avoid actual metahuman conflict in any traditional fashion. The most combative character revealed - an invulnerable cheerleader - seems to have powers that are entirely defensive in nature, with no more offensive capacity than a normal cheerleader of her size, weight, and non Vampire-slaying training. (Unless they take a note from the minor Marvel character Diamond Lil and have her invulnerable fingernails cut like knives and so on, which I doubt is going to happen.)

I may tape a few episodes, but I'm expecting that this will be one of the early casualties in the Fall season.

For folks looking for something outre to steal scenario ideas from, I present the following gem:

The Theosophist

A Monthly Journal Devoted to Oriental Philosophy, Art, Literature and Occultism: Embracing Mesmerism, Spiritualism, and Other Secret Sciences

Conducted by H. P. Blavatsky

Volume 1: October 1879 - September 1880

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/theosoph/theos-hp.htm

Re: New Plane link: Tell me this thing isn't uber-sexy.

Hmmm... a red and white paint job, a pilot who's obsessive about racing, his father, the designer, a younger brother to get in trouble, the ubiquitous understanding girlfriend, a monkey, and some rivals backed by someone like Skymaster on the air-racing circuit (which was big in the 30's) and you've got a mini campaign just in that comment Jak.

Oh, and let's not forget the mystery-man pilot that crops up at odd moments to save our hero and is secretly the pilot's older brother long thought killed in an air crash.

Re: Have you used anything from the Asian Bestiaries?

Not yet, but I'm about to.

One of the players in my Pulp Hero game has had an NPC Chinese houseboy following him around for virtually the entire length of the campaign, cooking cleaning, extoling the virtues of Chinese cooking over westen styles ("You look like what you eat! You look like potato!"), getting lost on the US rail system trying to find Georgia, arguing with each of the character's potential girlfriends about what was proper dress for the character, etc.

All, of course, without any understanding on the character (or the *player's* I might add) that his houseboy, Chang, was actually a girl disguised as a boy and was hopelessly in love with him.

Now, the girl's brother, a tong leader in China, has finally located them and, believing that the character has dishonored his sister (evil brothers never think that anyone could spend that much time in close contact with their innocent sisters and not have done that - it's a rule), is going to put the mystic tong smackdown on the poor guy and send one of the tong's spirit patrons after him. At some massively inconvenient time. With no warning.

Film at eleven.

Re: Anyone use the Champs Universe Arena?

The best use that I ever got out of the concept was to have the fighting circuit utilize at least two levels of 'play.' The first, where normal (albeit well-trained) guys who wanted to fight without even what rules exist in the current 'ultimate' fighting circuits could compete, and the second where people with varying levels of actual methuman power competed under the same rules.

The party was drawn into the plot on two levels: One, by investigating the death of a WWE-style wrestler who'd been fighting on the circuit undercover and had gotten beaten to death in a fight out of his 'weight class' with the local champion and dumped. His girlfriend was on a tear to find out what happened, and set herself up to fight on the circuit as well, with some of the characters following her. The other front was the rest of the campaign following the trail of a learning-disabled metahuman who'd been grabbed while on parole and forcibly made to fight in the circuit.

Everyone showed up at one time for the big throw-down, where it was revealed that the local champion was actually a genetically-engineered minion of King Cobra and the whole illegal circuit had been set up to be a testing ground for genetically-engineered troopers for KC (as well as rake in a lot of dough). Learning-Disabled metahuman was freed, outraged girlfriend became a new street-level heroine, bad guys got clobbered, and heroes were sneered at by KC over a video link. Hard to ask for more than that as a GM.

All-in-all, it worked pretty well for me, but I never got back to the idea of someone else taking over the circuit.

Re: Nothing says "Pulp" like a flying wing...or five.

Very cool indeed! Can I ask where you located the images?

Re: The Trail of the Gold Spike

Cold Steel wrote:

Thanks all of you for the input! I don't know if i have enough info for creating my own version but i might have the Condor a rebellious former lackey of The Skymaster from Masterminds and Madmen. A "lesser of two evils" sort of thing. Was the Condor a former Army Air Force pilot?

You've got me there, man. I'd need to run home and check the HERO Shelf to see what the module said to be sure (but I'd tend to agree that he was as a default position).

Running him as a former Skymaster minion isn't that bad an idea, especially given the way that the Condor operates; I think that the Skymaster would have violent disagreements with the way the Condor "acquires" his pilots and controls them. If you go with that idea, let us know how it worked out for you!

Re: The Trail of the Gold Spike

That was indeed the adventure.

Re: The Trail of the Gold Spike

At worst, only some slight revisions would be needed to bring things in line with a 150-point character campaign. Mostly beefing up the Condor in case there was a fight on the ground and so on; in essence the sort of things you'd want to do to tailor the scenario to your own campaign anyway.

Re: The Trail of the Gold Spike

It was the first Pulp-Era adventure I played in using the Hero System and I still recall how much fun it was. I've run it three times in varying incarnations of my Pulp Hero game over the years (with three different resulting outcomes) and it's been a hit each time.

If you can locate it, I reccommend giving it a read. It will need some conversion, but it's worth the work!

Re: NEMESIS SQUADRON: New Game Packet!

Having now looked at all the available parts, I think you're doing a darned good job with it. The races are all interesting (don't know that some of them would appeal to my local players, but hey, no one likes everything, right?), and broad enough in spectrum that you can find most anything you're looking for.

I do think that a more thorough breakdown on the technology available to the players would help, especially with regards to weapons, armor,and so on. Star Hero covers a lot of ground, technology-wise, and rather than assuming "it's all available" it might be helpful to say "Nemesis Squadron uses the standard Barstoe Laser Rifle of the Legion (Star Hero weapon and page reference)" or stat one out so there was something to work with. The same with armor, and heavier weapons and so on.

Re: Superpets: The Freedom Kittens (crossposted from NGD)

That actually got brought up in the game, and the answer was:

All the animals pointed to the Mighty Hamster [iNT 13, but with some serious education gaps] and said: "He said we were!"

Later investigation determined that TMH had telepathically plucked the phrase "I have to feed the damned rodents again?" out of an irritated lab tech's head, and assumed that he and the rest were all 'rodents' because of it.

Re: Superpets: The Freedom Kittens (crossposted from NGD)

This makes me think of a group I encountered years ago in a game: The Rodent Commandos. Basically, they were the test subjects for a US Government process to give super powers to humans. The process worked, leading to a group of super-powered and human-smart lab animals that were always breaking out of their facility to help their friend, one of the humans that went through the process. The line-up was: The HedgeHammer, a metal body transformation hedgehog who watched too much professional wrestling; The Mighty Hamster, a psionic hamster; Fantastic Ferret, a ferret with stretching powers; Bombbat, a fast flying bat with a hypersonic cry and explosive guano pellets; Rocket Rat, a flame aura powered flying rat with unfortunate environmental side-effects from his powers; Race Rabbit, a supersonic running rabbit; Blink Badger, a teleporting badger; and Quantum Cat, a phasing cat. (One of the lab assistants was told to "get some experimental animals" and used his girlfriends exotic pet store as the place to acquire them, and the rodents outvoted the cat to name the group).

Re: Help: powers for the super heroine Maxima.

Depending on how it fits in your vision, you might look at something like:

30 STR

20 DEX

25 CON

20 PD

20 ED

4-5 SPD

10 Damage Resistance 10 PD/10 ED

And then find a martial art that seemed to fit the character's "style" and invest in it. Some options if you have access to the Ultimate Martial Artist might be: Pankration, Jeet Kune Do, or something like Tae Kwon Do.