Scott Ruggels

Unfortunately for us, the World & creativity in general, that seems to be what this era of potential players wants.  It’s easier to stare at a screen than it is to read and easier to consume than to create. How to use one’s imagination is a skill and it’s no longer being taught or learned.  New thoughts and ideas stimulate the brain into creating new neural pathways.  The act of thinking pumps blood and oxygen to the brain making it a more efficient thinking machine.  The mind is a muscle and theirs are not being exercised.
   How much of what sells in Hollywood is either adapted from other media, a continuation of an ongoing franchise or an remake of something that’s been seen before.  This regurgitation of the familiar is easier for minds uncomplicated with individual thoughts to assimilate.

My opinion for years is that computer/console RPGs are not actually RPG's.  They are closed event games with lots o pretty eye candy.  You can do nothing in a "CRPG" that hasn't already been thought of and specifically programmed in.  Even the "open world sand box" CRPG's are limited. 
 
An RPG needs a human to be actively running the game and human players to be actively playing the PC's. 
 
I do find it amusing that they are calling it an Arena Game because it is long on combat and short on non-combat Role Playing because that is exactly what Hero is.  
Lots of guidance on combat and power usage in combat.  Very little to nothing on out of combat role play.  There some great guidance on building campaigns, but not much on non-combat run of play. 

Been looking at it more.
 
There are some elements of what could be a decent, fast-paced game. Of course, having spent so long with effects based rules, it's a little tough getting back into picking from lists, and the game is definitely very heavily combat centred. Overall, I'll keep an eye on it, and it may wind up in my RPG collection.

They want the range of a full-power cartridge while keeping the capacity to carry a reasonable quantity of ammo. Plus, I think the ability to base a light MG off the same platform, with all the advantages that gives for logistics, kicked the SIg bid over the line.

Well, the Army in it's vast wisdom has chosen the Sig, with the 6.8 x51. So it seems that they went with "Battle Rifle" as x51 is not an intermediate size. Not supposed to be super heavy though....

Guys:
 
Spence sent me,a debound 4e,for making high-res scans akin to what I did for 4e Western HERO.  I had intended,to get them scanned over the Christmas break and soend the next couple,of monrhs cleaning then up.
 
Unfortunately, I am married, meaning I havent had a day off in twenty-odd years.  Off from work?  Yes.  A day of my,very own?  No; not really.    western HERO got done when she was working nights.  She dowsnt work nighta anymore. 
 
still, it will get done; just bear with me.
 
 

Legend of Vox Machina. Okay, so the drama is not on the order of, say, Ibsen or Chekhov, and it's possible that Aaron Sorkin writes better dialogue. But it tires to be fun, not to be Great Art. This 12-episode animated series, adapted from the "Critical Roll" D&D online game, is amusing and captures the feel of a well-run game. (Including the moments, aggravating at the tine but funny in hindsight, when the dice screw you over and a task that should be simple becomes impossible.) The charaters are pretty standard Fantasy types, but introduced clearly and promptly. It is generally clear what everyone is doing. I have seen worse storytelling on TV.
 
I will note it is quite a free adaptation. For instance, the spellcasting characters don't run out of spell slots: They exhaust their magic because they get tired. They also push their magical powers, suffering additional fatigue as a result, and "stunt" their magic to do things that do not fit within the narrowly defined affects of D&D spells. The result is that the whole series feels a lot more... Hero System.
 
Dean Shomshak

I offered a level to points guideline for the purposes of converting characters from D&D (3e) to Hero System (5), but one of the main advantages of converting a D&D game to the Hero System for me is to get rid of class & level straight jacketing so I personally never used level semantics for my Fantasy Hero campaigns as anything other than a conversion tool and as an approximation for some players who were stuck in that mode of thinking and wanted some kind of touchstone to cling to. 
 
http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Conversion3e/Conversion3eStep1.aspx
 
Tangentially, this document spoke to considerations for how to adjust the way in which a DM coming from D&D (level based) might challenge PC's as a GM running the Hero System (point based):
 
http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Conversion3e/Conversion3eOpposition.aspx
 

LIES! LIES!   You Get What You Pay For! You get what you pay for!!
 
...only half kidding, based on some of the responses I see in these forums. (And most of the rationale for 6e).  I tend to view points as a game currency rather than as hard math. 

Mostly The rare times I have seen it, as it was NPCc Heroes.  PC Heroes spent the points elsewhere to boost their combat effectiveness.  Then there is how you class them. Are they followers or DNPCs?

Many lifeboats were made as independent watercraft with a sail, a bin of cracker rations, a fishing kit, a water cask, a compass, two pair of oars, and a tarp. This is different from a whaleboat which is just the boat with oars. It can be used as an expedient lifeboat, but lacks navigation and sustainment items. 
 
Recently, especially for commercial vessels, the lifeboats are powered, weather resistant, enclosed, fiberglass, boats, gravity launched from the ship to give them a kick away to get clearance. They have navigation and radio. All lifeboats have to be inspected, and restocked if need be. The USCG takes a dim view of unmaintained lifeboats. 
 
Paying 1/25th points seems fair for a limited use craft used to leave a bad situation, or a damaged and unrecoverable ship.  

 

These past couple of weeks has me realizing I miss honest to goodness banter in my games, both IC and OOC.

A clean definition is always better than one cobbled together from ill-fitting parts.  
 
 

I was NOT the GM for the misadventure I am about to relate, but it's the worst example I know of.
 
D&D.  The DM's wife was a writer and wanted to see what this D&D thing was all about, so we set up a little party for a campaign.
 
* Elven Rogue (me), sailor by trade, good with knots.
 
* Dwarf fighter, strong and tough.
 
* Halfling of some flavor.
 
* Halfling bard of some sort (DM's wife).
 
So the absolute opening scene of the campaign:  we open a door and are confronted by a chasm with a river of lava in the bottom.  We must cross to continue.
 
My sailor Elf with rope and high agility manages to get a grapnel across and shimmies over.  We have to make dex rolls, which frankly not many first-level characters are good at. The generic halfling goes over next.  
 
Then the DM's wife.  She rolls a 1.
 
Down she plunges toward searing molten lava! 
 
Signaling to our doughty Dwarf, still on the starting side,  to anchor the rope around his waist and brace himself, my Elf leaps into the abyss, swinging down to save his companion, the DM's wife, and the entire campaign.
 
A perfect roll!  The elf snatches her from certain death.  Both their falls are checked momentarily by the Dwarf's brawn as he performs a belay.
 
He rolls a 1, and is yanked off the ledge. You knew this was coming, didn't you?
 
All 3 of us plunge into fiery death.
 
The halfling is the sole survivor, left alone in the hostile side of the chasm with no rope and no way home.
 
The DM's wife, who, as a published author, is used to having *total control* of plot and characters all to herself, storms out of the room without a word.
 
Campaign *finis*.  She never wanted to try again.

It's not too terribly exciting, really.
 
I was trying to fill in a gap in activity / conversation.  The denouement  had...   denouement...ed? -- after the completion of a long story arc (four or five months of sessions on the one arc), everyone was feeling deflated (in a good way, I mean), and there was suddenly a very long pause-- no players spoke; no characters did anything, so just to keep the silence from hitting that "awkward" stage, Earl- the maintenance guy at their base-- chimed up with "well, it's Thursday already; I've got to be going!  Welcome home, folks.  Don't call me if you need me; I've got custody this weekend, and I'm unplugging the phone!"   
 
Hmm....
 
Think the Players.  What could that be about?
 
"HHHmmmm....." grunt the Players.  "What was that about?"
 
"Earl's divorced.  It's his weekend with the kids.  He's done this before.  It's on the calendar in the office, but you guys have been so busy the past few week...."
 
"He's up to something--!"
 
And for the next hour-- real time; a couple days game time-- the start gathering intel on Earl-- everything they can get their hands on.
 
The next two game sessions they are _obsessed_ with Earl!  To the point that they follow him, looking to see what he's up to.  It was funny for about ten minutes, then it got weird....
Problematically, they got really _excited_ about the idea that Earl-- a pop-up NPC who had been running their base for honest-to-God _six years_ of game time-- was secretly a villain, or a spy, or some sort of mastermind---
 
Toward the end of the second session of "What's up with Earl," I had put up with all I could handle.  I dug in-- Earl left his apartment an hour before sunset, took a cab to the drug store, and bought skin cream, lotion, a humidifier, and stopped at a hardware store and got rock salt.
 
"Where's his kids?!"
 
You don't see any kids--
 
"I _knew_ it!  He's up to something!  He's probably building some kind of bomb!  What kind of bomb can you make with salt?!"
 
Truth was I had focused so hard on giving Earl something to _do_ that I had forgotten it was custody weekend.  That's all there was to it.
 
You've already learned he lives on the top floor--
 
"Skylight!  What do I see through the skylight?"
 
The skylight....   what would you do in a tenement building with a skylight?  Hmmm.. ooh!  Better lighting in the shower!-- the skylight is directly over Earl's bathroom--
 
Is he building a bomb in the bathtub?  What's he doing-?!
 
Well, as you watch, set back from the grimy glass so as not to cast a shadow on it or to accidentally be seen, he appears to be --- running the bathwater!  
 
"What's he putting in it?  Ammonia?  Bleach?  Nitrogen?
 
crap... what did he buy.....?   A hasty side glance at the notes-- uh...  he's carefully measuring out the rock salt!
 
What?  What's he up to?
 
There's a... Thermometer!  He's checking the temperature of the water very--
 
he looked up!  Good thing the sun is setting and you're setting back a bit, or he would have looked dead at you!
 
The water!  The thermometer!  What's it for?!
 
He appears to be checking the temperature of the water--
 
I call John!  This could be it!
 
(john, in character) Jetstream here.
 
Jetstream, I don't know what it is but it's going down!  Earl's measuring rocksalt into a bathtub full of temperature-controlled water!  This could be it!
 
(jetstream)  I'm on my way!  Call the others!
 
Within moments, all the heroes are gathered, staring at Earl as he carefully checks the salinity and temperature of the water.  Then he darts off to another room and comes back with a mysterious sealed container!
 
What does it look like...?!
 
Well, it's brownish, maybe quart-sized (I had been winging it, but at this point, I had made a decision).  It says "Country Crock" on the side..
 
What?  Butter?
That's margarine, idiot!
Yeah, and it's pretty---
 
What's he doing now?
 
He's lighting candles--
 
A ritual!  Is he summoning something?!  They need salt for that!  Where's Mysteria--
I'm right here--
Yeah; make a skill check!  Is he summoning something?  Can you tell what it is--?
 
oh, why not....  "Go ahead, if you think he's summoning a demon."  I push her player (Straight John) three dice.  Natural 18!  Under the circumstances, hilarious to me; frustrating beyond measure to them. 
 
Wait!  He's putting something in the tub-- 
 
is it the butter?
 
No; it's a small device of some sort.  There's a cord that runs to it and plugs into the wall---
 
(to Mysteria) Are there electro-demons?  (to me) is a bomb?  Is the water crackling with electricity?
 
No.  make a PER Check....  You see some kind of clear tubing hooked to the machine; it's laying on the floor-
 
Is it pumping the water out?!
 
No.  The candles are lit in a pattern (now I'm just having fun with it).  There are three arranged in a triangle around the tub, five in a circle beyond those, and nine outside of those.  He's pressed on a button on a gizmo that looks like CD player-- at least, same size; same shape--
 
Does it vibrate?!
 
No, but when he throws a switch in the cord, the small device in the tub appears to-- a small, steady stream of bubbles begins to percolate to the surface of the water---  it's pretty dark; you can probably get closer if you want-- 
 
Yeah!  What do I see?
What do I see?
Can I see what he's doing--?
 
He's opened the plastic tub and he reaches in...  he appears to be sprinking something into the water-- like bits of potting soil and..  something you can't really see what it is--
 
I have telescopic vision!  Where's my dice?  I rolled five!  What do I see--?
 
 
it looks like small worms of somekind-- not earthworms, but hundreds of small worms....
 
Demon worms!
nanobots!
Alien parasites!
 
(if you're wondering:  tubifex.  Tubifex was the correct answer.  No one got it).
 
You see Earl start to tremble-- his hands are shaking, and he's having trouble with his balance--
 
He's in a trance!  It's beginning!  Mysteria, get up here, front and center!
 
Be careful!  All of you, make an easy PER check (no failures) The moon is coming out, and you're perfectly silhouetted against it--!
 
Crap!  (rolls dice) I want a stealth check to creep silently to the other side of the skylight!
 
No problem; you make it.  You see--
 
oh, me too!  
I don't have stealth!  Can I just creep over slowly--
Got an 11-!
 
You're all on the other side of the skylight, and have the perfect vantage point to watch a fifty-four year old man strip.  Clearly, this is one of your finest moments.
 
No; he's up to something--!
 
He's also naked.  He's staggering; he can barely stand--
 
Should we help him? maybe he's being possessed!
No; he's summoning something, or building some kind of weird bomb
I don't think Earl is a bomb....
Maybe it's the control pod for like an entire mech hidden on the floor below--
In someone else's apartment?
He probably rents that one, too!  (to me) How much do we pay him?
"Not enough for him to catch you watching him undress, or rent two apartments....   He kneels down beside the tub and rolls over into it and begins to spasm.
 
Here it comes!
 
And as the moon finishes rising, complete and full, and its silvery light shines through the skylight, you see him twist and writhe and---  He's shrinking!  Something's happening!  He is getting smaller, his arms are shrinking and his fingers are getting nightmarishly long-- 
 
It's a transformation!   He's becoming some kind of Hell beast!
 
He's becoming a fish-
 
WHAT?!
 
Right there, before your eyes, you-- The Seven, the mightiest defenders Campaign City has ever seen-- stand aghast as you watch a naked old man (this was long enough ago that I thought 55 was ancient) shrivel and shrink and gasp for air and sprout scales and turn as silver as the moon-- and within moments, where Earl had been, there is a smallish fish, swimming around the bathtub, lazily eating tubifex worms.....
 
 
 
WHAT?!  
 
THAT'S _IT_?!
 
THAT is what we've wasted two entire sessions on-?!
 
No one is more upset about it than I am; I promise.
 
Why would you do that--
 
_I_ didn't do it!  _I_ was getting tired of telling you that know Earl, you know his ex-wife, and you know his sons, but _you_ wierdos decided he was some sort of Soviet spy---!
 
Well how where we supposed to know--?
 
 
And more and more in that vein...
 
 
I have said it before: Players do the most confounding things.  Just roll with it.  If you don't leash them too tightly, they'll build you an entire world.
 
And Earl the werefish.
 
 
 

At least you gave them a payoff.
    I was in an episode once where the players were Supers searching a castle that was the fortress of a person calling himself Drake.   We weren’t sure if he was a Vampire lord or maybe a dragon  (Dracula literally means “Son of the Dragon and Firedrake being another word for dragon) or if he was “just” a powerful sorcerer.  We also didn’t know who’s side he was on, so the paranoia was in full bloom. We spent an entire SIX HOUR SESSION searching his library/study and found nothing out of the ordinary.  Which of course lead the more crazed players to search even further. 
    After the night was done, and we were packing up to go home somebody finally beseeched the GM to let them know what they missed.......he said “There was nothing there.”
We almost murdered him.  Instead of saying “You search as many hours of game time as you want but find nothing,  what do you do next?”  He amused himself by watching us chase our tails for an entire night.  This was not Games Mastering.  This was pulling the legs off of one side of an insect so you can watch it crawl in circles.

HERE HERE! 

V'han's rule is not omniscient or omnipotent -- the very existence of the persistent rebel groups described in BOTE proves that. The Book also outlines crime in the Empire, including several very powerful and widespread organized criminal groups. In addition, the Empire faces external threats from V'han's rivals, Skarn and Tyrannon; and you could also probably add to that list the temporal tyrant Korrex the Conqueror (see Golden Age Champions).
 
BTW as to why anyone would rebel: material benefits aren't the only things many people desire. Freedom of thought and expression, self-determination, matter a great deal to some. In a way, material benefits can be the enemy of order and conformity. When people don't have to focus on survival, they have the luxury to think about other things.

Don't be too hasty, UV! 
 
if you have been following the partial invisibilty thread, you know that the fact that the character _could_ have an advantage over somone without lifeboats-  being able to use the lifeboat in water too shallow foe the ship;  being able to set a lifeboat on fire ans cast it adrift; being able,to stay dry when the ship sinks--
 
All of these _could possibly maybe happen eventually once_, prociding a singular narrow opportunity for a clever player to possibly gain an advantage over someone without a lifeboat, maybe, and therefore- because of the timeline in which it might be useful once or twice, lifeboats should be no less than a five-point adder.
 
each.
 
 
 
seriously though: if it has zero utility beyond death postponement or plot advancement, I find the idea of charging for them at all to be a bit repellant.  1/25 "normal cost" is quite agreeable, I think.
 
I mean "you get what you pay for" is fine, but why does one guy have to pay just to advance the plot?  And if you bought it and it never got used, did you get robbed?  Is the GM somehow depriving you of your lifeboat points unless he arranges to sink your ship?
 
current trends of "get what you pay for" and "it is wrong to charge for something that isn't going to come up"  and "if the player buys it, then he expects to get some utility out of it" all suggest that buying a lifeboat will absolutely condemn your ship. 
 
are you the GM?  If so, just give them some lifeboats (if they want them).  They will have them for if they need them, and they won't get all huffy about that one or two twenty-fifths of a point that they had tied up the entire campaign if they don't have to use them. 
 
Besides- if they are available for free, they become plot devices and a means to guide or provide for your players.  They didn't investigate the spooky cave in the cove- the one where the clearly-labeled Mcguffin is?  "Oh no!  The storm surge is too strong for the little outboard motor!  You are being washed into the rocks!  Wait?  Is that....  Some,sort of cave, there in the back of the cover?!  The next swell throws youe craft up, up-  and then you plummet, stomach turning flips at the dizzying rate of descent!  Then another!  It shoves your little lifeboat with a furious purpose- straight toward the Cove...!"
 
a bit railroad-y, at least that example, but I am sure you can see the point.
 
as to the 'actual advantage"-   well, when the boat goes down, they wont die at sea bevause they spent 1/25 of a point...,
 
Now remember that Dragon Magazine back in the 80s published (uh...  Okay, look: I am,sixty-two, and sometimes I fail to recognize that it just might not be possible foe the guy I am talking to "remember" the 80s _at all_.  Sorry if I have assumed something)
 
Anyway, Dragon published a list of unofficial proposed powers (which a lot od us used to build dun and completely forgettable characters like Rubber Ball Boy!, etc. 
 
One of those powers was Extra Life.  It cost one point,  just one.  I mentioned once on the old Red Octiber board (and later on the 4e version of this board) that I still lwt Players buy that one now and again.
 
I cannot over-describe the amount of outrage I took for that-  between the "the point is gone forever!" complaints to "Oh no!  The character is dead-dead-dead!" complaints to "I have no problem with this, but it should cost fifty points and one Player kidney, bevause it is so valuable!"  complaints.
 
The short version is that one point was just nowhere near enough to charge for "oops!  I didn't die!,"  but here, in the vehicle rules, 1/25 of a point for the same,thing is completely fine.  I would like to point out that it is effectively a full point: you cant even get a Pip of STUN for 24/25 of a point these days.  
 
Even shorter version?  Do what feels right for you and your GM (or players).  Don't get vaught up in the everything has to be paid foe because it has real or potential value or because it is not like the other guy's, so maybe you're guy has a diggerent way to do it that might work better, in some way I absolutely have not been able,to fathom after a week of deep thought on the subject."  Just dont get caught up in that.
 
Because as soon as you do, you start comparing things, and noticing how wildly, in spite of the claims of balance, actual in-game utility varies from build to build, and how much the prices vary when the utility is the same.  Pay 1/25 of a point to not drown qhen the boat goes down, or pay one point to not drown when the boat goes down, or use that ridiculously arcane Duplication / resurrection thing for whatever it costs in various editions.
 
Just have fun, and if you don't see any real in-game vakue for something, don't charge for it.  If you do charge, but it never gets used, even once, dont tell anybody, because apparently that's wrong, too.
 

 
 

Well the author tells us that it is an incomplete rule book that he is given. So I find that his assessment questionable.

(thread necro)
 
Gizmodo has reviewed a preprint of the upcoming Marvel TTRPG.  Tl;dr: The ruleset is long on combat crunch and short on roleplaying and storytelling (to the point of calling it an "arena game").  It's not a positive review.

Yeah, the 4th Edition one had a VPP.

I can advise, but I am usually paid for contributions. Art, is time consuming, and I need to pay my rent.

"My character is an ogre named Klon Ssamud, S-S-A-M-U-D.  His last name is 'dumbass' spelled backwards."
 
"He spelled it wrong?"
 
"He's 8-foot-4, 485 pounds, and swings a mean halberd.  You are welcome to tell him he can't spell his own name correctly, but I am not responsible for what happens as a result."

The Batman: Surprisingly good movie that lets Batman be a detective for a change. Gotham is portrayed as dark and moody, and reminded me heavily of the rainy Los Angeles in Blade Runner. It's a long movie, but is now available on HBOmax, so it's possible to pause for bathroom or snack breaks. (HBOmax)
 
Iron Man: I re-watch this one every once in a while, still a good watch. (Disney+)
 
Spider-Man: No Way Home: Good mix of nostalgia and action. A good watch. (4K UHD)