BigJackBrass

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien? May I interject a vote for gooseberry pie at this stage?

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien? Thinking about Howard's tendency to over-praise the "savage," it came to mind that in some ways Tolkien does the same thing. In his writings "modern" peoples are often greatly reduced from their illustrious forefathers. However, Howard seemed frequently (throughout his writings, not just in the Conan stories) to take the view that civilisation is inherently bad, leading only to weakness and degeneration, whereas in Tolkien the earlier races were often more civilised than their descendents as well as being physically and, perhaps, morally superior.

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien?

Re: Sci-fi swear words? Federation starships in TWERPS Twek fire Phubar Torpedoes, by the way.

Re: Sci-fi swear words? Farscape did manage a certain sincerity with its swearing, at least, despite the obvious "made-upness" of the terms. Maybe because they swore so frelling much in that show. Fans of Red Dwarf have long been amused by a certain brand of refrigerator, by the way: http://www.smeg.it/international/collections.asp?CollName=CC I'll have to have a think about other sci-fi swearing. Nothing else is coming to mind right now. EDIT: Didn't Mork have a particular swear word he used? "Shazbat" (sp?) or similar?

Re: Captain Jack My thoughts exactly. Jack fills the role of "action man" which is essential if the Doctor is to remain essentially non-violent. He's not the first character introduced for this purpose - think back to Harry or Steven or Jamie - but he's probably the best written so far. The problem with male companions (and I'm using that term in its original Doctor Who sense, for anyone reading further into the homoerotic subtext of recent events) is that they can overshadow the Doctor if they get to do all of the action scenes, yet appear generally useless if they do not. Russell Davies has specifically stated that Jack was needed as a "soldier," to tote a gun and not shy away from violence. The real trick has been to make him much more than simply the Doctor's action stand-in and to cast such an excellent and likeable actor who has been able to bring him to life.

Re: Yak-ety Yak There are worse things to have stuck in your head. Backstreet Boys videos, Tom Cruise movies, javelins...

Admittedly this is not going to be directly useful to your pulp game, but... ... I just started a new job working for Barbour (the waxed jacket company) and discovered that we sell yak hair sweaters! And they're called Superyak! Life just keeps getting better.

Re: Pulp Hero, after looking it over Excellent news, your Imperialness. I shan't interrupt

Re: Captain Jack Lived in the US from age eight, I believe, but now based in London. He can turn on the Scots accent when he wants to. And yes - dancing in the streets! - series 3 is apparently confirmed.

Re: New Campaign Idea I'm gearing up for a similar campaign. Low-powered supers have always been my preferred genre for heroics, and the pulp era is a fabulous place for them. On top of which, once you've read Justice, Inc. (the novel... although there's plenty of inspiration in the game too) it's very hard not to want to run this sort of game. Early attempts at bulletproof vests had their uses, but I explain them to players by comparing them to doorgunner armour of the Vietnam era. Exactly want you want when you're liable to catch a stray bullet, but you're not exactly going to be running around the streets in the stuff. All told, I'd rather be ducking behind a wall or a car than trusting my life to pulp body armour. Might as well try hanging a manhole cover on your chest.

Re: Captain Jack Hope it doesn't upset anyone to learn that he's played by a Scotsman. Fans of the good Captain might like to know that he'll be back in Series 3 of Doctor Who.

Re: Book Recomendation: Houdini, Tarzan and the Perfect Man Thanks for the suggestion, Oddhat. I'll have a look at that one (things used to be so much easier when I worked in a bookshop). For a non-biographical take on several well-known figures it's worth getting a copy of the graphic novel Necronauts, which pits H.P. Lovecraft, Charles Fort and Harry Houdini against a menace from beyond. Perfect inspiration for weirder, mystic pulp adventures.

Re: Pulp Hero, after looking it over

Re: Pulp Hero, after looking it over Cry quietly, please. Some of us are trying to read.

Re: Secret decoder Personally, I'm just waiting for someone to write up the Decoder Ring in HERO terms. It's big enough to work as a buckler, for starters.

Re: Pulp Hero, after looking it over It's mine! Mine, I tell you! Huge thanks for going above and beyond the call of duty to David Salisbury, who not only wrote one of the best RPGs around (Dark Continent) and runs a very fine games store but also brought back a Secret Decoder Ring and hardback copy of Pulp HERO - signed, no less - for me from GenCon. Top bloke, and I hope he recovers from the jetlag soon. Pulp HERO was very nearly responsible for me failing to get home this afternoon, as I was so engrossed in it that I almost missed my stop. Mr Long, this book is quite probably the finest pulp RPG I've ever seen and could well be the best HERO supplement as well. It's a delight, utterly engaging and staggeringly informative. It's not the best bound hardback I've ever seen, but I expect it to hold up pretty well: it's certainly going to get a lot of use. Maybe I can finally retire my copy of Justice, Inc.

Re: Pulp Hero, after looking it over I'm just waiting now to see if my Friendly Neighbourhood Store Owner was able to snag a hardback and decoder ring for me. He should be back from the States this week... Sigh... [Glances at watch] Sigh...

Re: Pulp Hero, after looking it over

Re: Rocketmen Hero? You can never have too much retro-Sci-Fi romping, I always say.

Re: Alternate History

Re: Telephones! Should I have?

Re: Thoughts on using 1d20 instead of 3d6? From a personal viewpoint I prefer 3d6, or even 2d6 in games built around that roll. Percentage or D20 rolls have a nasty tendency to throw up wildly varying results, and as a GM that usually means more stuff to fudge and paper over because it makes so little sense in the contaxt of the game. Changing HERO to a D20, consequently, does not appeal to me. However, had HERO been written with a D20 roll in mind it might have worked perfectly well, but getting around the quirks of such a flat roll would require far too many tweaks and special mechanics to make retrofitting a viable option, I think. I like the tight bell curve. To me it matches human (and superhuman) performance quite nicely.

Re: Telephones!

Re: Alternate History Another thought: Depending what era you are looking to play with you might want to snag a copy of L. Sprague de Camp's famous novel "Lest Darkness Fall," the story of what happens when a 1930's archaeologist finds himself hurled back to the fall of Rome. The hero, Martin Padway, wants to avoid the fall, but knows he is not well equipped to do anything about it. Most games might propose the discovery and utilisation of gunpowder, or perhaps working magic, but in this book Padway begins by introducing brandy and thus earning money, moves onto the printing press to improve education and rapid spread of accurate news, then creates a system of semaphore towers. In fact he does try to make gunpowder, but even knowing as much about it as most of do he never gets it to work. De Camp avoids the obvious and does not make Padway superhumanly knowledgeable, so when he opts for crossbows as the best military innovation it makes sense; we tend to look back on such things as primitive and lump many such weapons together, not realising what a major (if short-term) effect the introduction of such a device can have. All of which rambling is simply to say that your point of historical divergence does not need to be something major, such as killing a world leader, but could be something less apparently obvious such as discovering and settling America a few centuries early, or introducing modern accounting and numeracy to ancient Rome.