Shigeru

Re: Books of Richard K. Morgan I read ALtered Carbon, and thought it was absolutely brilliant. I picked up Broken Angels...and got almost 100 pages in befre I put it down.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? Our standard solution to the attack/defense ration argumnents was a drastic one.... No resistant defenses allowed. Sure, Normal damage attacks exist. But once push comes to shove and the kid gloves come off, combat doesn't last so long. Its also a lot easier to say that an NPC is out of the fight when he takes an impairing/disabling injury to an extrmity versus takign a lot of STUN. When your leg's broke, uits time to say UNCLE.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? Some great maps there! But my issues, specifically with flying characters, is the size of the maps...they are not always wide/long enough. OR the characters with loooong range abilities can only maximize their skills when the map is very, very large (nor nonexistant). I fully endorse maps for creating the atmosphere and "setting the stage". But they can also limit things by their sheer mechanical nature.

Re: WHY is combat so slow and what have you done about it? I have run (and played in) games where combat was the main attraction. WHere the roleplaying happens during combat and between combat. And by "between combat" I mean a few minutes of character development and plumbing...for as long as it kept everyone entertained. The math is what it is : math. Get used to the normal calculations to reach to-hit numbers and damage calculations and its not so bad. My biggest issue was always with maps. I love a good map, so I literaly create my own problems. But maps tend to limit the imagination of flying characters' or teleporting characters' capabilities. It would be great to play without maps, but it never worked out to well (or too often) in my games. Combat took a little while because we always wanted it to be as cinematic as possible (hence the maps and the many combats) but it was never so long that we hated it.

Re: Taira Clan Reborn Not to hijack this thread but... Markdoc, I ended up using some of your characters as NPCs in my own feudal Japanese game... I can probably provide all of the PCs and NPCs from my own game. A lot of mooks, soome mid-level types and some full on characters. I also had some maps that I made converted to BMP format so I could reuse them. Things like bath-house, temple, crossroads and guard door.

Re: Random Rokugan Stuff This is really fantastic work. I'm fairly certain I don't have enough posts to rep you, but I'll try. Kudos!

Re: Heist Hero I ran something similar to this, though the heist itself was a red herring (much like in Reservoir Dogs). THe characters were doublecrossed by "someone" and had to find out whom before they were apprehended by the police. The original target was a private diamond cache. The doublecrossers turned out to be Yakuza who had a grudge against the PCs main contact. The game involved a lot of impromptu GMing on my part and introduced some very interestign NPCs. The PCs were, of course, criminals. They all had different motives and while at least one was genuinely a "bad guy", they were mostly peopel who had a desperate need to make fast money and had the skills to aid in the heist. Lots of fun. THat campaign is still discussed by th eplayers though it was run over 10 years ago. PS - the specifics I requested of the players when submitting their character ideas : One or two useful noncombat skills with a reasonable degree of proficiency (combat driving, computer programming, security systems, systems operation, etc). One HTH "special effect" and one other "special effect". I was goign for cinematic effects, so we had a couple of cool things in there that were only somewhat effective...but they sure looked cool when pulled off.

Re: Anime series as a campaign Back in the day, a friend and I decided to run an Aeon Flux game. Mind you, this was during the Liquid TV days and before it was picked up for its own series and waaaay before it was a bad film. There was a high body count, many killing attacks and absolutely no resistant defenses allowed. A brutal, fun, fast and furious game. Impossible to take too seriously.

Re: Good Zombie flicks Zombie, The Gates of Hell and (sort of) The Beyond. All by Lucio Fulci. Are they "good" movies? Not really. Are they good zombie movies? I think so. Heavy on atmosphere and gory violence, and very slight on comprehensible plot. Fine by me.

Re: Name Help: Super Patriot Depending on the character's military service career, it might be something like a traditional WWII fighting unit... Devil Dog (actually coined during WWI) Flying Tiger Leatherneck The Marauder (yeah, I know its a Marvel supervillain, but come on...Merrill's Marauders?) You could also name him after the "operation" code name that his first significant mission carried (i.e. "Desert Storm", etc) Here's some others... The Partisan The Liberator The Brigadier Some I got from www.specencyclopaedia.com... Shadow Stalkers. Nickname for the USMS Special Operations Group. It comes from the fact that the unit hunts dangerous fugitives (a.k.a. shadows), as well as waits in the shadows of federal courthouses during high-profile cases to thwart terrorist attacks. Alamo Scouts. Reconnaissance unit for the U.S. Sixth Army in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.

Re: The things I learned playing a gunbunny If you bag a thug who was packing, holster your gun and use his. Chances are good his buddies use the same ammo so you won't have much trouble picking up all you need when you gun them down.