Duke Bushido

If I could prevail upon y'all to resolve my ignorance: All of this exists, published, for a game setting that has formalized mutant hunting. Is that correct?

Lord no! This thread is annoying. I believe the best comment I've ever heard on the loudness problem is (not mine, but I have no idea to whom it should be attributed): "Some people seem to have learned their "inside" voices _inside_ a helicopter filled with running chainsaws!"

I agree with modern Pulp as a good thing. The problem, at least as I've seen in regards to comments here and moreso in the real world when the subject comes up is that we are far enough removed at this point in time that a huge chunk of people seem to think that Pulp is "guys in hats." The charm of Pulp was a lot of things-- even the hats, of course, but Pulp will, at least to me, always be about exhilarating adventure. Now to narrow that down a bit: thrilling adventure with Pulp tropes. Such as: The Heroes were not just people of action, they were people of _resolve_. They were people firmly aware of their moral compass, and who used that compass as an actual compass: it guided their lives, from the tiniest decision to the risk of their lives. They did not question themselves, because what they did they did for the preservation of morality and "goodness" and to ensure the punishment of the wicked. Justice was not something you waited for a judge and seven thousand short-attention-span strangers on Twitter to define for you: justice was punishment for evil deeds, and it was the absolute _duty_ of every man, woman, and child to work-- actively!-- to ensure that justice was served. There were rules, and the righteous enforced them. There were laws, and the good lived by them. There were social mores, and living one bit less upright than you were capable of was unthinkable: it was the place of all virtuous people to remember that they were honor bound, by unspoken social contract, to be the best examples of virtue they could be. All adults were leaders, and leaders inspire. People knew in their hearts that they were not only responsible for others, but for _themselves_. No one did anything without the resolve that comes from knowing that what you are about to undertake-- and all you may suffer from it-- are results of nothing but your own decisions and your own actions. You understood the importance of that in society, as well. Society should be concerned about others; you knew that. But making society responsible for you was evil. No man was a man who was not responsible for himself. No woman was a woman who could blame away her problems. Attitude was fifty percent of pulp. The rest was high adventure, split evenly between falling-from-grace type stories involving crime-- detectives or policemen or gangsters or enemy spies-- dealings with evil people, or perhaps recovering from your evil past, and exotic locations. We as a country knew so little about the rest of the world (which is, unfortunately, the source of the misguided rumors that we never bothered learning), and as such the world was filled with mysterious locations-- every jungle had treasure and lost civilizations; every continent had a jungle! Those little bits of random art on the maps covered over long-forgotten islands filled with voodoo priests and volcanoes. Every plane crash discovered a hole in the earth, leading to all the hollow layers inside our planet, each large enough and mysterious enough to be yet another world. Action and adventure was the rest of pulp. And that's why no one is interested today-- the younger folks, I mean. We've spent a couple of generations teaching them that society works best when you wait for it to hand you things. We've spent a couple of generations teaching them that no shortcoming or defect of character is their own fault. No one has the right to stand up for himself, and if you're obnoxious enough, you can do whatever you want, any way you please. I don't know a nice way to say it, so if someone can help me out here, I'd love to edit it in, because at this point all I can say is something along the lines of "we have filled the world with too many self-absorbed self-important candy asses who want nothing more than what they can get without effort, because someone somewhere owes it to them." I guess that will do for now, but it really doesn't seem like the nicest way to say that. At any rate, that's our new social norm: you're the most special because you say you are, and everyone else should have to cope with that and make sure you're happy all the time. Even if that does _not_ apply specifically to a person-- or even if it does not apply to _ANY_ person, ever, it really is what's being pushed as the new "way things should be." It's really hard to take someone who thinks _that's_ the ideal society and convince them that Pulp is anything but a moral aberration. It saddens me. Honestly, I blame the loss of the Western as common entertainment. That's where we were introduced to these ideals, early on, and we all reinforced it in each other. Whether we personally behaved accordingly or not, we understood that society was totally about being self-reliant and self-responsible. But I suppose we could replace all that with cool beaver-felt hats and cars with bobbly headlights. Those are cool, too. As far as that goes, though: Pulp lived at least as long as did Heinlein. The "Golden Age" of comics? Pulp. Righteous good guys, serving society. Clear-cut bad guys. Fantastic adventure. Exotic locations. I'd like to break this down further, but I have talked well more than long enough, and it all boils down to "Pulp is that segment of entertainment that becomes more and alien with each generation, and less and less intriguing to them." Duke (seriously: if anyone can think of a nicer way to say that, let me know and I'll edit it in there)

I don't know if it's of any use to you, but grammatically-speaking (pardon the pun), you aren't obligated to consider it unholy unless you are a devotee of some other deity, in which case you would be expected to do so.

Sweet! You know, all these years, I have never even _considered_ that! That whole line of thought just never occurred to me for dealing with Luck (or specifically, for altering it away from the Luck mechanics as suggested over the years). Thank you for that. I've seen a lot of suggestions for turning die pips into one-shot Power Points, etc, but I think this is the first time I've seen the idea proposed from the "value" of Luck. Thanks again for that. Is this a published character? 12d6 Luck?! Considering what the actual _book_ says is possible at _3_ dice, 12 dice is a flat-out script: anything that amuses you (or the character) is what happens, all the time, period. You could fall in a volcano and land on a diamond slide that shoots out the side. It seems odd that the company that specifically spells out "3d6 is pure magic" would publish a 12d6 character. Maybe that's the way to cope with Hazard: give him 12 uses of 1D6 Luck. Spend the rest of the points elsewhere. Or make it slide like END: he has a total of 12d6; he can spend 1, 2, or 3 dice at a time. When they're gone; they're gone. Reset per X time period. I maintain, for what it's worth, that a person must first decide to avoid, so a decision _has_ been made. It's simply that the "third option" of Avoid is rarely spelled out.

I am _similar_ to Surrealone, in that I _will_ roll dice. If I may take a moment to explain: It's _easy_ to yank something away from the players; it's _easy_ to give the villain a lucky break. Worse, it's _tempting_ to do it. It's far, far more tempting to do it than it should be. Not for evil or selfish of just asinine reasons, mind you, but sometimes for the best of reasons! Suppose this is the third or fourth encounter with this villain, and the story is building beautifully, and you have this great idea on how to add a surprise twist or a new layer--- and you just _know_ your players will love it--- Stop. Stop right there. Maybe the won't. Maybe they're a bit tired of this guy, or maybe, having lost him three or four times so far, they are _ready_ to take his butt to jail.... And you already know that he's not your master villain and you're not anywhere _near_ as far along in your story as you'd like to be after this many sessions..... You see what I mean? When you just decide to give the villain a lucky break, is it truly because "it's time he got lucky" or is there something, something you aren't even aware of-- deep inside you that just _wants_ to do this one last thing? To that end, when it seems like it's time for the NPC to get lucky, I _will_ roll the dice. In this way, even if I think it's time for him to get lucky because of an internal bias, I am leaving the actual decision to... well, to a randomizing device I can comfortably call "luck." Short version of that? I roll the dice so that I can _know_ that I am being fair to my players. Now _how_ I roll the dice varies a bit. DNPCs? Random NPCs? Just like a Luck roll for a player character. Villains? Villains have it a little tougher. With Villains, I roll 3 dice. Two of them have to come up "6", or they don't get a lucky break. Three sixes means a better break. There is no "level three" for villains. After all, they've got the script that decides ahead of time if there's a secret escape pod under the sofa. Does it seem harsh? I don't really think so, considering just how much I tend to think "Oh, it would be so awesome if!" pops into my head. I consider it the last check against accidentally railroading my players. Besides, Crime doesn't pay. Why shouldn't the universe be a little less kind to you than it is to the good people defending it? Duke

It's all good. I have no idea, as I own neither of those products. As long as it is, in your best opinion, truly viable, I can comfortably recommend it to others looking for an inexpensive way to test the waters. You know: Since the thing everyone is asking for a "GURPS Lite" style set of rules, and the thing on the schedule is yet another volume of additional rules via an APG3....

You are not wrong; I do play 2e. However, we have incorporated a lot of the 4e stuff over the years, making changes as needed to bring it in line with 2e (range modifiers where appropriate, etc.) A lot of it we didn't really need: Teleport with a -0 Limitation "only to move between dimensions" took care of EDM, -- but yes, we have pulled new powers (and the Perks, which didn't much exist before 4e) when there was no _reasonable_ way to do it with 2e. Pools, if I remember, first appeared in 3e, now that I stop to think about it. However, Summon didn't work for us, because after the 12-hour limit and BB goes away, there's still someone there. Summon with the side-effect of "summon again!", particularly with the added "and the second summon also T-forms the new summoned into someone with a set of extra memories going back to a small cave in the African Desert.

Actually, I run for a character similar to this in my monthly game: Billy Battalion. I'll spare the long origin and explanation, and sum it up with "when the Hero is needed (as he's part of a group, he has to be summoned), the closest person name Bill, Billy, Will, Willie, William, etc-- *poof* that person _becomes_ Billy Battalion. Variable Skill Pool, changeable only ever 12 hours (after 12 hours, *poof back* and that guy reverts back to himself, at that exact spot (which really affects what Billy Battalion is willing to do in the last few hours: he has to concern himself with the safety of "my buddy, Billy!"). At that point, Billy has to be summoned again, and again-- the nearest Billy (who has never been Billy before) gets poofed. Now Billy must find his way to where he needs to be, etc-- Sorry! Digression. Variable Skill Pool, varies from Person to Person. While the bought-and-paid for skills are always Billy's, the skill pool is determined by by the "base" Billy-- background, knowledge, professional skills, etc. I keep short random lists, as part of the agreement is that the GM spends at least half the points in the pool. Billy Battalion's looks also vary from base to base (he will assume roughly the same size, colorations (skin, hair, eyes, etc), and gender (that one surprised him! ), and general age of the base Billy. Or in two cases, Billie and Wilhelmina. Only exception is that, even if the base Billy is a kid, Billy Battalion will always be at least twenty-five years old. His Characteristics are interesting, as well. Honestly, were the hook that let me allow the concept: they are _not_ bought as normal characteristics, but as pools (each one) with a max Limitation on each pool. For example, the Strength pool can only be used to give him a STR equal to the base character +25. The SPD pool is limited to "base character +2." Well, you see where this is going. The exceptions are (naturally), Stun, BODY, and his defenses. Even his END pool is limited by the base Character (which also gets interesting). In Play? Yes; at first it was a _bit_ annoying, even in a group of well-experienced players, but within a few sessions it became a pretty simple-- repetition does that, I suppose. For us, really, the whole schtick part, though--- like Doc said, it doesn't translate effectively. When we tried it as a multiform, well how do you explain BB reappearing while his last base character is still wandering around? And even then, the only way to make every Bill on earth his "other" form was to buy them all. Either that, or have every Bill on earth buy Multiform, complete with their particular version of Billy. We tried Summon, but after 12 hours, when BB is gone, the other guy is there. Side-effect? That doesn't really handle it well: Side Effect: random human pops in and now the _other_ players have to deal with that. See what I mean? We tried Transform, but it was hard to rationalize: How can BB have T-form and use it on someone when he doesn't yet exist? And just how big T-form does he need, considering that his "super" form varies so much. In the end, we hand waved it with "secret ID" and "Instant Change." Oh-- best part: after BB turns back into the base character, the base character remembers _everything_. While he's BB, he is BB: Billy is in the driver's seat and the other person is wherever Billy goes. But one they change back, they remember _everything_, right down to the origin story. This just _rocks_ if the base form is a kid. I don't know if there is anything helpful there or not, but I promise you that nothing will be as helpful as Doc's caution that it's something of an issue in actual game play. If you, your GM (or player; I don't know which part you play in your group) and-- and I can't stress this enough, because it really does affect them, especially during the "learning curve" period-- every single person in your group-- is willing to work at it a bit, it's also _lots_ of fun! Hope something there helped. Duke

Now that's kind of interesting. I didn't know about it fitting anything other than some generic Champions template. It doesn't help me much simply because it didn't exist until two versions after my favorite edition, but it's still neat to know. Though let me ask you this much: Assuming that someone had _only_ what you suggest as the bare minimum to play, would they have what they need to understand what these thing are, what they do, and what they mean in game terms? I completely understand it is difficult to answer a question based on feigning ignorance on something in which you are well-versed, but in your honest opinion, would a person, using only the materials you suggest and no other exposure, be able to gain all the information he needed to run a game smoothly, and with a solid understanding of mechanics and how to use them? Thank you, Sir. I very much appreciate your vote of confidence and hope to not disappoint you or anyone else taking it as a given. I will admit that I _did_ lose my cool in a post a while back (which I try very hard not to do; it was just bad timing and bad phrasing all around). I regretted it immediately and edited out things that were frankly a bit nutty, but at that point, I had inadvertently offended someone who was completely outside the whole exchange. I offer that only as a lesson to all of us to act civil with one another: I'd hate for anyone else to be reminded about "stray bullets" and "innocent bystanders" the way I was. (That reminds me; I failed to appologize to him. I need to do that when I get home tonight.) All that being said, and with no wish to open a long-rotten can of worms (as proof, I am dropping the subject entirely after this personal anecdote), I would like to mention, without excessive detail, that COM is important to me, particularly in PC /NPC interactions. It is important enough that in one of my game groups back during the SETAC Era, when my players got wind of the rumor of COM being dropped and began arguing about its validity (for and against), I stopped charging for it. Amusingly enough, that prompted several waves of characters with a wide range of COM, rather than what were becoming standard increments of 6. Duke

The only thing I ponder while brushing them is "am I going to forget to take them with me again?"

Historically speaking, I'm the loudest voice for a return to 2e on the board; it's what I play. It's what I like. I still like to engage in conversations when I can, as I might be able to help someone. Or, more enjoyably, learn something I can use or see something from an angle I hadn't considered. I like to read some conversations that I don't participate in at all for pretty much the same reasons. Though honestly, you could make a thousand-fold improvement in 6e just by bringing back COM.

More! Immediately! Remember..... remember how much more fun you had, back in those simpler times..... Early editions for the win!

I believe you.

I had a roommate in the eighties..... As noted before, I never was (and have never become) a comic book guy, but I had a roommate who was (one of the guys I game with at the time, actually). I remember during the eighties there was some sort of crossover event in comic books where they were wiping out entire universes wholesale-- billions of trillions of people killed off-- Just so they could straighten out the plots and writing staff. Talk about hardcore. Beat that, Lord of Most of the Planet Lived!

Forgetting to mark the entire NGD as "read" after checking in on the only two threads you're interested in.

Do you mean the bare minimum financially or rules-wise? (serious question). Because I neither have nor want that damned thing and I have more trouble finding new players than I do actually playing.

I don't know if this helps, but Heroic normals can be found up to SPD4 (ish). Unless, of course, you're making a game rule that everyone is SPD2, to preserve that D&D "everyone gets a turn" feel. And I don't know how you'd model this with HD (because I know squat-all about HD), but I would think that with "Extra Turn," even casting on Segment 6, you'd roll on until Segment 6 on Turn 2. If it's supposed to be post-12, then I would think it would be post-12 on Turn 2. Unless that's what you were saying; I wasn't really certain.

Yep. I get a thirty minute break myself. If there are two people in line at Subway, I don't even try. I just head to the grocery store and see what's on the deadly counter. Uh, deli counter. Yeah. Deli. Problem is in the town where I work, if it's after 1 thirty or so (and I get my break at 2), you likely ain't eaitin'. Used to bag leftovers till the gets got old enough to make sure there never are any.

And a planet, obviously.

Ah; I see. Thanks, GB.

Hey, I resemble that guy, too! In all fairness to me, it's usually because I've given the .... ah-hu-heh-hee-hem... "artist".... aheh-hurumphem.... Sorry. I had something stupid caught in my throat. As I was saying, it's usually because I've given the kid behind the counter the exact list twice, and he's only remembered the first item the first time, the second item the second time.... Yeah. I just get tired of repeating it.

Asking because I'm ignorant on 6e: Does the reserve _have_ to be limited?

Gnome BODY: For starters: I _don't_ disagree with you. At least, not entirely. I don't disagree with either of you, really, at least not at the core of what either of you is saying. I just wanted to toss this in: Rather than building it as CV with and without minuses, etc-- if I recall correctly (and I may not. In spite of every genre book left unattended for a year or two turning into 4e Ninja HERO, I've only read the thing ... well, every new player (male) wants to dabble in it for a bit, so I've read it a couple of times, but it's been a _long_ time since I've studied it. Shorter version: If I recall correctly....) Martial Arts Maneuvers were essentially CSLs given fancy names and sold off something like Package Deals: Here's a bunch of CSLs; here's how they're allocated; here's a small discount for taking them. As I mentioned in another thread, Martial Arts and its related minutiae was never really appealing to me or most of my players, even in Heroic level stuff (which, for the record, is the bulk of my play). We decided "Martial Arts" was a 3pt skill that gains you a style and lore and all that knowledge / background-y stuff. Generally, a "martial artist" in our games has some CSLs he can throw around (usually moreso than other characters and a block of HTH attack that he uses at whatever level he cares to use it at with each maneuver. You know what? It doesn't seem to matter. I've got one player in my Brunswick game who plays under another GM regularly, and the other guy does it "book-wise." By his admission, either way is just as satisfying, as the narrative of the fight is more entertaining than the math. Plus he's not limited by STR bonuses, etc: his block of HTH is as big or as small as he wants it to be, which he decides by the theme of the particular campaign. No one has to learn or track any special maneuvers or special rules, etc. But I'm seriously digressing here. My fullest and most heartfelt apology. I only popped in to mention that-- again, if I remember _correctly_ -- the first "martial maneuvers" were built off of CSLs and not raw CV. (CV can't add damage elements, etc)

Well, crud. I can't afford glasses, so I guess I need a bigger screen. All this time, I thought he was from Mississippi.....