Ian Mackinder

Re: Eccentric but plausible ways a character could be rich? Character was a child star (music, TV, movies or combinations thereof) who somehow bucked the usual trend. Unlikely, I know, but it COULD happen. Instead of blowing/otherwise losing all that money in his/her teens/twenties, a sizable chunk of it was actually very well-invested.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games A weapon mod for 'Fallout 3' - thought it deserves mention here as a firearm with its own built-in Presence Attack Further images here - http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13141

Re: "Neat" Pictures It DOES raise a troubling question. Since the monkey took the pic (and it IS a self-portrait), shouldn't his permission be gotten before any alteration and/or distribution? Just wondering.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Expression like that, you just KNOW the little sod is up to something.

Re: Space the final frontier

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation? Given what was going on the Soviet Union up into the 1930s, one really does wonder how different the population size would have been without ww2 - and in which direction. :|

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation? Plus the Cold War, natch, which may not have seen a lot of open fighting but lives were lost and there was plenty of war-by-proxy - a buttload of insurrections, destabilizations, territorial disputes, skirmishes, provocations, intrusions, uprisings, interventions, confrontations, rebellions and out-and-out incidents. And for post-1945 non-Americans, there were (in total lack of order): The four wars between India and Pakistan( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India-Pakistan_Wars ); The Sino-Indian War ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War ); The Indonesian Invasion of East Timor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_invasion_of_East_Timor ); The closing stages of the Chinese Civil War ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War ); China's "incorporation" of Tibet ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Tibet_%281950%29 ); The Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konfrontasi ); The Middle East and Africa in general (w-a-y too many to mention); A bunch of other stuff I haven't even thought of just now. 56 years of peace? Depends where you stand.

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation? What makes you think we haven't? For all we know, the "typical" fashion might be unisex burqas. On the other hand, there are all those naked aliens - when was the last time Chewie wore pants? O_o

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Frankly, I'm very disturbed by the notion of McGinty getting married. Assuming there is a female out there who is willing, reasonably human AND comparitively sane (in McG's case, a very tall order), there is the implication that McGinty might actually breed.

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation? Eberron.

Re: Adventurers' Club Update OK, back in action. All four partymembers are still trying to resolve problems in their respective fields of expertise. Father O'Malley had, at the request of a friend, gone to investigate a murder / disappearance in a remote hamlet. Specifically, "remote" as in located in the middle of an all-but-impassable swamp, with the only access being by small boat. Since arrival, he has found that the hamlet in question is actually the locale for some .... questionable biological research and a bunch of other goings on. The sudden attacks from "swamp people" are bad enough, and then there is the bunch of (remaining) researchers who panicked and made off with the last boat (fate unknown). But, the most immediate problem seems to have come from the improper disposal of wastes from their labs. Yep, you guessed it - those smegheads dumped some really really weird stuff into the swamp and (of course) now there is a giant alligator (fifty-plus feet long!) out there that just will NOT go away. If there is any good news, it is that this monster is W-A-Y past being able to disguise itself as a floating log. The padre has become the leader of those still remaining on the island and (despite a lack of explosives, oxygen cylinders and/or a big enough harpoon gun) is busily improvising ways to take out Super-Gator. Stuff involving guns, a trench full of diesel fuel and a few other odds and ends. Tommy Atkins is still test-piloting, and has now uncovered evidence that at least one person is trying to sabotage the project (Gasp! Shock! Horror!). Now all he has to do is juggle a few things - figure out who are the saboteur(s), stay alive, and successfully complete the test flights. Good luck, Tommy. Doctor Hawke got fire-bombed. More to the point, the clinic he was working in at that Indian Reservation got fire-bombed. The good Doctor heroically saved his patients from the fire, during which he eventually had to remove his shirt. Which led to comments from the rest of us that, since this is a Pulp Game, then surely being shirtless should significantly boost his strength and physical toughness. The Refs were much amused. The Doctor has now worked out that the root cause of the epidemic has been a range of "vitamin tablets" that a pharmaceutical company "gave" to the tribe fairly recently. He is not pleased, and I anticipate him wanting to borrow Captain Ferguson's deck gun before visiting said company. Captain Ferguson has continued with the salvage of that US submarine. Only two survivors rescued, who had taken refuge in one of the torpedo tubes when things went sideways. The rest of the sub has been cleared of explosive gases, and Ferguson has made some preliminary assessments as to the causes of the tragedy. Special note to one of "his" NPC crewmen - Cohen, a skinny young apprentice (trainee officer) who squeezed down the torpedo tube to bring out one of the survivors. Ferguson has been particularly impressed with his conduct in this mission, and is now considering appropriate ways of acknowledging this. Pretty much it for now.

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation?

Re: Space the final frontier Also an 'Enterprise' episode, where they find a spacecraft stranded on a hostile world - for quite a few years as it turns out. There are survivors - a family and some of the crew, some of whom seem rather ... "odd". Turns out the father and his young daughter were the only survivors, and he then created a bunch of holograms to keep her company and also help maintain the ship's systems.

Re: Space the final frontier Well, in 'The Dilbert Future', Scott Adams (Dilbert's creator, funny guy) had a chapter titled 'Why The Future Won't Be Like Star Trek'. Amongst other things, he suggested that the Holodeck would probably be the last things that Humanity ever creates - because there will be no reason for any of us to want to leave it. Doesn't matter what might be happening elsewhere, because (as Scott puts it) most of us will infinitely prefer to stay in the Holodeck getting oil massages from Cindy Crawford and her identical twin sister.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... *Sigh* Yet more Polaroid moments ....

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Looking good, though possibly not so for the PCs.

Re: Space the final frontier XP was allocated in a pool to each Player, and they decided which of their Characters benefitted. Each of my Players made a point of creating quite distinct Characters, and this seemed to work well - allowed for variety in role-play, that is for certain. Re FASAtrek charcter generation, No complications, quirks or anything at all like that in FASAtrek - that was entirely up to the Players and the Ref. You picked your Character's race and gender, generated stats and chose background skills, then decided what rank and function said character would have ingame. You then worked out the Character's career (and accrued skills) up to their current situation. Basically, the exact reverse of classic 'Traveller' - instead of seeing how far you could get your character in a given career path, you decided what your character was going to be and then backtracked from there.

Re: Space the final frontier Maybe you mean the Delta Quadrant (the quadrant where USS Voyager ended up)? Alpha and Beta Quadrants are where the Federation, Klingons and Romulans are located; and Gamma Quadrant is where the Dominion is. Also, I strongly suspect that Aspergers / Autism is one of many somethings that UFP medical science had countered. For humans, anyhow - maybe there are sentient alien races out there where this is, more or less, their normal state?

Re: Space the final frontier I never had any bias against any of the Treks. Certainly, all of them had their good and bad episodes - some possibly more of one or the other, depending on whom you ask. The constant bitching and back-biting about which one was "better" is the primary reason I dropped out of organized Trek fandom many years ago, and just never went back. Ran a few campaigns using the FASAtrek rules - two Star Fleet (one small and one large vessel) and one Klingon (small vessel mostly, then a large vessel near the end). All set somewhere between 'Wrath Of Khan' and 'Undiscovered Country' and all went quite well. Certainly, they can be more demanding on Players in some ways. Everybody needs to be onboard with how things SHOULD run, so the Ref must draw the line early on, just to be safe. As regards absentee Players, the only way to deal with this is as with any other rpg - have copies of all character sheets, and either run them as NPCs or by other Players (with Ref supervision). Face it, the only alternative is to not play at all. One trick I found worked EXTREMELY well in my 'USS Axanar' campaign (Star Fleet "large" ship) was this. Each Player created three characters. The first character (the Primary) was a senior officer (Captain, Exec, Chief Engineer, Chief of Security, Helmsbeing, etc..). The second character for each was a Shuttle Pilot (Axanar carried both shuttles and fighters) of Ensign - Lieutenant rank. The third character for each was (mostly) Security, but there was also a Scientist, a Medic and a Tech in the mix, all of Ensign - Lieutenant rank. For routine shipboard stuff, it was mainly the senior officers in play. If an Away Team was needed, it was usually a very quick turn of "mix and match", with one or two senior officers in charge, plus a selection of junior officers depending on circumstances. The real beauty of this set-up was that almost everybody, at one time or another, had chances to lead Away Teams or be in command of the ship. It certainly eliminated the whole 'Let's Beam Down The Entire Bridge Team' thing. Could even have a few "surprise" arrangements. For example, one time most of the ship's crew were put out of action by bad guys trying to take control of the ship (face it, happens in all the Treks at least once). The Shuttle Pilots had all been in their Lounge (in a relatively isolated part of the ship) and thus overlooked. So, it was up to them to save the day. 'Die Hard On The Axanar', basically. All along, I was fortunate in that my Players were mainly people I had gamed with for years. IMO, Trek rpging has even less room than most other rpgs for Munchkinism, PvP and general dickery.

Re: Timeline Building - Effect(s) Of Semi-Powered Individuals On WWI ?? You're welcome Don't forget the Kiwis (New Zealanders) . For that matter, non-English Britons (Scots, Irish, Welsh). Note that there was a lot of support from the US from well before its official entry. Quite a number of US citizens volunteered, individually or collectively, for various roles - the 'Lafayette Escadrille' ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Escadrille ) was probably the most famous. The AFS Intercultural Program was another organizational example ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFS_Intercultural_Programs ) and, even if non-combatant, its members saw a great deal of action. So US citizens being in Allied military units of one kind or another certainly happened. Such persons just would not have had any protection from the (neutral) US government. Early form of "plausible deniability", so to speak. Less palatably for some. There were also large pro-German groups in the US and, while we tend not to dwell on those much, it follows that there were some US citizens who took up arms (of one kind or another) for Germany. At least, while the US was neutral. Oh, and here is something else interesting from the magic of Wiki - a list of famous people who were ambulance drivers in ww1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ambulance_drivers_during_World_War_I Strange when you think about it. When most people think of World War One, the focus tends to be on the Western Front and its appalling losses (and for us Aussies and Kiwis, the Middle East). But, there was a great deal happening elsewhere as well.

Re: Timeline Building - Effect(s) Of Semi-Powered Individuals On WWI ?? ... And, if we are talking about "semipowered" individuals of ww1...... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Emil_von_Lettow-Vorbeck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Jacka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Freyberg,_1st_Baron_Freyberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_George_Barker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_C._York

Re: Timeline Building - Effect(s) Of Semi-Powered Individuals On WWI ?? Should be noted that, while 'special forces' as such may not have existed in ww1, many of the concepts were known and used. The word "Commando", it should also be noted, originated in the Boer War. ANZAC troops (Australia & New Zealand Army Corps) were known practitioners of what was known as 'peaceful penetration' (in their own words, "Sneak through enemy lines in small groups and then make complete b##t##ds of ourselves..."). There were also many instances where mobility and surprise counted for a great deal against technically 'superior' forces, just not (usually) on the Western Front - more in the Middle East and colonial areas. Of special interest (and in no specific order): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeadler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Beersheba http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeebrugge_Raid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_East_Asia_Squadron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_Campaign

Re: Biggles: Adventures in Time Greatly enjoyed the books when younger. Never actually got to see the movie.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... I giuess congratulations are in order.

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation? ... And are NOT priority targets for people who hate Jedi. Think about it. You are in a squad of baddies about to smackdown a bunch of do-gooders. In the latter, who will be targeted first - the Jedi, or "those other guys". Doesn't matter if the non-Jedi are all in power armour and the Jedi is just in his skivvies.