GDShore

Back when I started running a campaign (Campions E1) I would collect crme stories (started as a hobby collecting stupid criminal stories) rework the tale and and publish it as a broadsheet. For instance ' a bank robbery in which the robbers shot there way out, I'd give them high-tech weapons and armor and the body count would be way higher ' then the team would choose which set of bad guys to go after. Very quickly the team began hunting up and sending me interseting crime stories one of which lead into a loooong story arc. That one ended with the line "I don't care who they said they were they were violating Canadian airspace". 

When I ran my champions campaign, a weekend where someone earned more than "2" points was a big weekend. I've always been somewhat of a miser.

Like everyone, superhero's have to eat, have shelter and wear stuff (I say stuff because one of the P.C.'s in my campaign was a clothes horse). If they constantly flited off to stop this bank robbery or that jewll heist or to face an alien invasion they would soon be out of a job or secret identity, so they all became part of "Dept. N of the R.C.M.P" reporting to the 'Govenor General' of Canada. Th3ey were based all across the country and were expected to hold until the entire team could be assembled. (much like the SWAT - Anti-terrorist team formed by the RCMP in the mid 90's) They recieved a salary and a per diem and either an apartment or house depending on circumstance. One of my players was an accountant and workeed all that out so that there was no time wasted on it in game. For a single session or 2-3 sessions money is not an issue but in a long lasting campaign it does become so, particularly if all your players are adults. (not all of them can be multi-millionaire's) We played a somewhat grittier super hero campaign, over a 7 year period more than half of the hero's died or medically retired.

I ran for about 7 years a monster month, in April, when origionally monster movies were released when I was a youngster. I did "Godzilla, Rodan, Giant Ants, the Blob, A variant of the Thing, a hidden world of Dinosaurs and finally it was how the Entomologist storyline began.  Usually the group used their regular characters but sometimes they would create somone entirely new. 

    As for magic, I have always used it as a science I never liked the D&D form. After all it has been said,, "A science sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic".

It can be a lot of fun running the big "score" event but it is taxing too, after every weekend of the 'Entomologist' I felt like I had run a marathon and I had lost 2 - 3 kilograms off my already light frame. I do not know that I would do it again but I am glad I ran that one. It is a good worthwhile memory. 

Mine is actually from"Traveller Hero", The party is hired to retrieve a runaway scion, along the way they find they are not the only ones looking for him. The other group is trying to kill him. Shortly after that they discover he is an Imperial prince, fifth in line to the throne. Much adventure some heartache (one of the party is lost permanently {shot out of a missile tube into a sun will do that}) they succeed. When they rendevous to hand over the princeling, the Imperial Chancellor greets him as "Your Majesty" there had been an attempted coup and the prince was the last of the Imperial line.  THe story arc took just under two years and was my second best storieline. 

I don't know that they are despondent, maybe just drunk, 'course they is going to be in a world of pain in a minute or so, after all uninvited guests have arrived.

Mine are 2.5 m tall the same long and I have 3, one of which is half full of war games. I once thought I would collect all of the different RPG's in existence, when I exceeded 100 games I ceased to do so. 

Besides, if you played original FH you likely already have those ideas and other knowledge.

Well done Mr. R,,, very well done. Please hurry the Maneuvers, pretty please with brown sugar on top.

A couple of things I would like to respond to. 1 - there is no way to duplicate those Welsh bowmen of Henry's, yes and no, today I doubt that there is any archer that could draw a 140 lb. to 180 lb. longbow, the heaviest bow I have ever shot was a 90 lb. longbow created by an incredible bowyer. The first shot released with no hand shock (hand shock occurs upon release when some of the energy stored just prior to release travels up the hand that holds the bow thru the arm to the shoulder) I managed 7 shots before the pain in both shoulders became so great that I could not crack the bow for the 8Th. (I probably could have developed the ability to shoot the 90 lb.er but the pain and 3 -4 years effort deterred me) When they raised the Mary Rose they discovered a number of longbows and recreated some of them, 130 to 160 lb. They could not find anyone to safely draw and release them, so built a jig to do so.  The 130lb. could penetrate 3" to 3.5" of oak planking at 150 meter, the 142lb. penetrated 6" of same with the arrowhead driven thru, and the 160lb. thru to the fletch using a triangular bodkin point steel, hardened arrow head on an ash shaft. 

2 - metallurgy - the quality of steels varied from locale to locale, from smith to smith and the ability to create a steel that held a perfect edge, was flexible and nigh on to unbreakable in one locale might seem as magic just 60 km. away. Damascus steel "invented a steel"  that was comparable to that being worked by smiths in India and Japan a 1000 years plus prior.

3 - chainmail, any metal that can be drawn into a wire can be made into chainmail. Back mid 90's a group of friends helped a young lady create a costume foe a "sci-fi" convention in Calgary Alberta. One of the chaps was making a chain hauberk and leggings for use in the SCA. and had made a jig to speed up the process, from turning the links to flattening the ends to the knitting to the riveting. We used the heaviest copper wire we could find stiff enough to take and hold the shape. She wore it once (it bit her almost every where) and we required major overhaul, to make it safe to wear. We lined the cups of the "bra" portion with rabbit fur from my leather working supplies and lined the strap's with butter tanned elk hide. Any metal that can be drawn into wire or cut into disks or scales can and will/would have been used for armor. 

4 - Mr. Taylor is right, armor will not stop all types of attacks. For instance a man wearing plate, will bounce swords and most axe's but is vulnerable to mace's which will cause "hydrostatic shock waves" turning their insides to jelly, chainmail is particularly vulnerable to piercing attacks. The quilted cotton armor of the Aztec did not fare well against sword blows but appeared to stop crossbow bolts dead. Modern military battle armor stops most kinetic weapons (Kevlar) but a knife defeats it. 

The Russkis aren't stealing the pole, the north pole, but rather the magnetic pole, and even there they didn't steal it, it has a mind of it's own and goes where it will as it oscillates around the north pole. Mind you that bodes well for Alaska as it will be there in about 30 to 50 years.(maybe a little more)

You are right L.L. Temujin was special, but not all that special. The tribe that destroyed was trying to do just that amalgamate the tribes. There were two other groups doing the same. As for organization the Mongols had already become the most effective and powerful light cavalry ever seen and add a growing overpopulation factor  then add the introduction of a new bow (D-bow which was the best of the horse archer bows by a considerable margin - it has a smoother draw, a smoother, easier release, over the horse's head, to either side and in Parthian) a new saddle form and the introduction of the "caracal" the Mongol hordes were inevitable. They were within a generation 2 at the most exploding out of Mongolia in all directions. Much like the Norse explosion on Europe's from it's north-east coast. Yes the man can make the times but just as often the times make the man.  Ah yes the Mongol empire did fragment and finally fall between 1368 and 1370 (by that time calling itself the Yuan dynasty by the Ming's), 140 years after the death of Temujin "the Genghis Khan" and while that was happening the Balsa tribe lead by Timur the Lame leads them into a series of short lived conquests that create the Turkic people that begin a wave of conquest in eastern then central Anatolia morphing into the Ottoman empire under Osmun

It could therefore be said that the last of the Mongol empire's did not fall until the 1920's.

 The problem with your premise L.L. is the historical forces to unite the Mongols were well established before Temujin "the Genghis Khan" did so. It reminds me of one of the great time travel paradox's " if you could travel back to the early 1900"s would you kill Adolf Hitler and thus prevent the rise of Naziism. It would not have. The forces which lead to it's appearance were already in existence world wide, (for instance, the eugenics which formed the basis of the Nazis race beliefs arose in the U.S. south) and before A.H. appeared one other Fascist leader had already made it onto the world stage. (there was also the abortive coup against F.D.R. that if successful could have birthed a Fascist U.S. with much more dire consequences) The death of Temujin is an interesting thought experiment, 1. the unification of the tribes fails , no Mongol hordes, 2. an Ogaidai, Kublai or a somebody unites the tribes sweeps into China then Korea then Japan, then what in our world are Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos ect. and finally Indonesia which leads to the discovery and colonization of the Australian continent. There are multiple possibilities, including the original outcome delayed by a decade or two.

You are right about that, close value per gram today was 465.88 USD, so $25 would be approximately .38 gram.

I played it first, in '67 0r '68 while they were still developing it. We were friends a long time, and I always saws him as being immortal, even in my fifties he was their as a friend, voice of wisdom and occasionally an ass kicker. (when I really needed it)

There is a good piece of source material available that can be adapted easily for Hero system usage, Chivalry & Sorcery RPG., created by two history students studying European history. It is complex, not particularly user friendly, I was a beta tester for it in my late teens. The tome has a wealth of knowledge of the customs, societies and general life in the middle ages (mostly middle age's Germany). Gives a very good overview of how to become a Knight, and how magic or at least how middle Europeans thought magic worked. I still have my copy of the original book, a gift from Wilf Bakus one of the co-creators, I always intended to get it autographed but sadly I left it too long, and he has passed. We were friends for more than fourty years I still miss him and his bombast and wisdom.

I guess that I am very cynical L.L. , the P.T.B's say it's destroyed, the P.C.'s did not see this happen, nor did they do it themselves, I suspect that it is stashed away for that foreseeable day when things go south between elves and orcs.

I have used TWO methods for creating sentient weapons (not just swords) 1. - a demon is summoned and imprisoned within the weapon, when used by someone of like nature there is harmony between the wielder and the wielded but when wielded by a goodly natured person there is a continuous battle of wills between the weapon and it's wielder, 2. - Noble weapons (almost always swords) requires that a church commission the creation. A saintly person of that faith must sacrifice their soul unto the weapon, if a person of evil or ignoble nature attempts to use said weapon it will turn in his/her hand and refuse to damage good. (as determined by the weapon)

I was going to gush about the figurine myself, Arthur beat me to it. 

Another thing wrong with that cover, the two guys two guns each, unless they are both ambidextrous, dumb, dumber, dumbest. With the off hand their just wasting lead, and I hate waste. 

As to that fist western cover, the body in the street "probly got hiself shot inna back. Pistols are lousy weapons at ranges above 10 meters.

Holidays due to fade and disappear -- Remembrance/Memorial day as WWI is now +100 years and WWII nearly 80 years in the past.  Also Christmas, if/as we move out to the stars religion will change, how ain't got a clue, but Christianity today would be unrecognizable to a 6th century European. As society evolves, holidays, religion and language adapt as well. (I recently read a favorite author say "she spoke 'merican englis better than I did and thankfully not that bastardized British version" I scratched my head over that one.

Your right again L.L. , the Welsh tales are woefully slim, mostly because they were oral and the few surviving were not written down for at 3 to 4 hundred years after first told. I was involved in a series of debates on medieval personages just before the turn of the century, Existence of Robin Hood, existence of Arthur, and who fulfilled there word more completely Richard III or Sa-al-a-din I argued for Robin, lost, against Arthur, won, and split on Richard vs Sa-al-a-din taking Richard.  I am not sure that I would win on Arthur with the new evidence that somebody drove the Britons out of Wales sometime late 400's early 500's forcing the Briton's to confront and pin the Saxon's to the coast for 50 to 75 years. That somebody(s) is probably the basis of the Arthurian legend. It has been a quarter of a century since I lost the Robin Hood debate and I still rankle, they disallowed my evidence from the Nottingham/Barnstable azzises (courts) as the photo copies were illegible [mostly]. My contention was that Robin Hood was not a single person but rather the leader of the largest outlaw band in the old forest. There are stories dating to just after the Norman conquest, all oral, and none written down until the mid 1200's. 

     The Robin stories come in two forms, when faced with the common Saxon peasant he loses often in humiliating fashion, but when facing the Norman overlords and there minions he succeeds brilliantly. The two sets are concurrent, the wording, pacing indicates the same origan bardic format.  

Ah. LL you must be referencing the "Lancelot"  era of the myth, which appears in the twelfth century by French writers adding romance and love and other such "garbage"  to the legend. The origional legend has it's roots in Wales not England, and deals not with the stopping of the Saxons, but rather the repulsing of the Britons who were being pushed west by the arrival of the Saxons. 

For me, the period between 1180 and 1200 A.D. middle England, Richard the Lionheart, John Lackland and Robin Hood. The sets write themselves, you can do almost anything you want and it will work. can