Narratio

Re: Is Crimefighting Ethical? Our western law is, basically, based up the idea of giving up on personal "revenge/vengeance" for crimes committed against you (whatever they may be) and giving this power of "revenge/vengeance" to an uninterested 3rd party (the police/justic system) on the understanding that they, being emotion free will be better enabled to enact true "justice". And we put up with the times it "goes wrong" and a bad person is set free, because it's better that a guilty man go free rather than an innocent man be punished for a crime he didn't commit. (or words to that effect). Now balance this with the popular thread in modern fiction that allows the person who has been wronged to take the law into thier own hands. The Deathwish series of films for example grows from this idea, as well as most westerns. It seems that we all secretly object to the common code we're brought up to follow (leave it to the police) and long for the return of "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth". Whether this is due to the percieved problems in our modern justice systems or it's that we're still so close to our emotional break points... Who can say? I've never had anything bad enough that the police were needed, occur to me so I can't say if vigilanteism is a bad thing or not. But it does break the common codes we need to live by in the Polis.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Mott - Mott the Hoople... all of it!

Re: escalating side effects rule Personally I don't like extreme side effects unless you're trying to make some player see a moral point and even then... but I'd agree with SteveZilla, you're looking at an extreme longshot here. I'd also call the 18 roll a -0. And I'd also use a lot of colour in the narration. Make sure that the guy KNOWS that, if it gets flubbed, say bye-bye to the coast and everybody points at him.

Re: The cranky thread The Petrochemical Engineering & Construction industry is amazingly short of people at the moment. It's like the late 70's all over again. I'm getting 1 or 2 job offers a week. All from differnet outfits at that. There just are not that many bodies left. Most of the people I grew up with and learned from were Korean War or Vietnam era engineering talent. They're all retiring or dead. At 49 I'm still in the young section of this game. We've got guys in thier late 70's coming in to do short term consultant work. There are a couple of mid 30's bods around and that's it. Not a 20-something in sight or sound. What happened? Did the growth of Starbucks / MacDonalds etc, entice everybody into a life of waiting on tables or something? Where are the bloody engineering grad's?

Re: Staking HTH attack with Martial manuvers I agree with the above. You can do it, but using CSL's seems to be far more elegent.

Re: I can't help it, I'm obsessed, made my own STUNx d6 Reminds me of the "Average" dice that were popular in the miniature wargames world back in the 1970's. They were 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5. No 1 or 6. Nice piece of work on the PDF, have some Rep'.

Re: Complicate the Person Above Of course, when death tribble posed for the "Freaks in Briefs" posters I knew it would all end in tears.

Re: Answers & Questions

Re: Starting Combat I'd agree with bigdamnhero. Narrate it until either either the characters initiate the combat or until you have to because the wolf passes the tree. If they can see the beast coming I let them have the surprise and start the action on whatever phase they feel like (I'm generous that way) including, if the speed differences between characters is large allowing them to hold phases so they all act together for that first phase.

Re: Character: Lance Dulak, Private Eye Most people consider lancelot to have been "English" (hah!) but the various stories and legends, plus more recent revisionism show a western european character, probably French. So a simple change of spelling like 'D'Laque' might work as a cover. Possibly Spanish? What's Spanish for "of or near a lake"? That would also emphasis the 'nobility' aspect. The Hidalgoes of the late medieval period were noted for thier fierce codes of honor. Overall, a very nice idea which I will, in the fullness of time, steal, file off the serial numbers and proclaim to be a product of my own genius.

Re: Character: Lance Ryan That's a tricky one to play either as PC or as NPC. Not many people understand the differences between in the Bolshevik demands and the Communists who eventually won. Lance would have a lot of knowledge in this area (parents tend to rant at children) and, probably, some leanings in that direction. I assume you do understand thier policies and could throw down verbiage as required? If so, that must have been real funny.

Re: Stalin's Legion of Super-Apes! Yep, that's the crew. But in the 50's radiation was the 'in thing'. You could do anything with it quickly. Breeding was a long term deal and the Communists (per comic lore) wanted total world domination and they wanted it today... by lunchtime at the latest. For that, radiation was "obviously" the way to go.

Re: Dr. Grordborts Infallible Aether Oscillators Just sent them an email asking if they'd considered expanding thier line. Some of those 30's weapons had backpacks after all. And then there's Buck Rogers Jet packs... ah me. You're right, they have great jobs. And I'm still in Siberia...

Re: The cranky thread Back in Houston, during project proposal for this twin oil field development I included power generation at the 2 locations using generators fired from the crude that's being pumped. My idea, I'm the sparkie for the project. We save a bunch in diesel fuel and a whopping $50million in transmission line construction. All agreed. Until a dweeb in the clients Houston engineering crew say that it's better to do power gen at one location. They can fuel the gensets from a nearby (30kM!) gas field that's being developed and only have maintenance at one site, which saves money and is safer. All cheer and raise various shouts. Why didn't we (Fluor engineering in general) think of that? So now we have 1 power gen site and a several large power lines routing electricity to the other oil field. I get out here to Siberia and our local design institute is merrily proceeding on that basis. Until a different engineer in our clients Siberian field crew asks why we don't split the power gen into 2 locations and save money on transmissions lines. There have to be people at both sites anyway... If I didn't suffer from male pattern baldness I'd be bald from this one, that's for sure.

Re: Complicate the Person Above SatinKitty was, of course, the Ninja Turtles talent agent at the time. She'd taken over death tribbles failed terrapin venture. It all made sense at the time.

Re: There are werewolfs in those hills (or big foot) Agreed, either as one of those beasts or as an alien like a Larry Niven Kzin.

Re: Stalin's Legion of Super-Apes! Something similar was used in the creation of the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, an early Kirby-Lee creation that fought the FF. You could check the Marvel Handbook and see what they outlined thier, as another way of taking the characters.

Re: Character: Joe Friday Agreed. He's also got that automatic respect for high level politicians and government that was part of the pre-Johnson culture. I'd keep all that as character colour, not something to buy as a limitations.

Re: Dr. Grordborts Infallible Aether Oscillators Now those are things of beauty! I really liked the man melter. Perfect for a quick game of Space 1899 I think.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: You looked perplexed, what's the problem Holmes? A: Six feet wide, two feet tall and answers to name of Gwendoline.

Re: Complicate the Person Above death tribble was once indicted for pimping terrapins to true amphibians

Re: Victim runs? I had a player who liked to do this, so once a month I'd run a spot as a sub story. He was a 'Shazam' type. A weak, weedy, geek nerd becomes a 6'2" Flying Brick upon rubbing his pinky ring. I only allowed it to happen 3 times then the thugs got wise and avoided him. He went back to patrolling.

Re: need a villain organization name My scientific super baddies all work for Integrated Technologies or IT. I always liked the playing the scene where the the good guys stumbled on thier dying informant, blood everywhere of course. "Who did this?" "IT did it! Beware... of... IT!" "Ummm, yeah, okay! Good safety point there..." The informant expires and the good guys were left wondering what person or shambling hulk of retched life they were chasing. It took them 7 weeks to figure out that the Integrated Technologies that some of them did consultant work for and IT were the same. Technologic Human Engineering Matrix - THEM Another outfit that specialised in cyborging criminals, mostly with biologic implants. "So larry, who did this?" "It was THEM!" "Okay... Them? Which them Larry? Larry? Larry? No good, he's dead!" Afterall, a GM has to have some fun.

Re: 6000 non NGD posts. Switch to cockroaches. You can put them in a microwave for a minute and the little things still keep on going! Cut off thier heads and the bodies keep living for a week or so. They'll also give you Cockroach-Mutant Ugliness, which may be way more ugly than plain old Spider-Mutant Ugliness.

Re: The Last Word Tab hit the UK in the late 70's & early 80's, never a big seller though.