Toadmaster

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? Thank you, there were a couple of posts, and your answers to them that kind of sounded like there would be no discussion of some of these (rather important to the genre) items. Looks like what I expected to find in the chapter so worries averted.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? Steve, would you mind explaining chapter 3 in a little more detail, because it sounds like many of the things I would think would be in that chapter are not going to be in the book. Chapter Three: GMing: This chapter delves into PA campaign creation, running PA games, and all that other fun GMing stuff. Thanks

Re: Pirate Hero arrrrrg! Following the model of many pirate computer games you can have a high degree of intrigue. You had the Spanish, British, French and Dutch at odds, alliances switched often. These games often track your "prestige" among the various nations, if you focus on Spanish shipping the British and French may consider you a hero, while the Spanish put a price on your head. But loyaties are often fickle, the mission you took from the British to attack a Spanish town could easily have you attacking after the British and Spanish have allied against the French. To avoid embarassment the British disavow all knowledge of your employment and sned pirate hunters after you. Many Pirate crew were simply sailors who chose to join the crew after their ship was captured rather than taking their chances with the sharks. Many dramatic elements could revolve around this, from being part of the crew to watching for a chance to escape. Many Privateers and Pirate hunters became wanted by the nation that initially hired them due to politics or bad fortune. Reality was most pirates (like many criminals) led short lives of despiration and poverty that ended in a violent death, but if you are running a cinematic campaign you can include all kinds of "fantasy" elements (treasure hunts, escort important person from point A to B, transport important cargo etc) and espionage elements (assassinations, spying, sabotage the new warship in the area etc). Also for an occasional change of pace you can have the Caribean get too hot and have the crew move over to the Pacific side, cruise the shores of West Africa, the Mediterranian or even China. All of these areas had their pirates and many Caribean pirates did journey to these areas (well maybe not China but I know they travelled to the others on occasion).

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? Lucius brings up a good point, might be worth at least a side bar to mention non-modern PA games. The dark ages could very well be considered a PA setting. Similarly a space colony setting where support from the home world has mysteriously ended. These would probably best belong in other genres but if a fantasy like setting 1000+ years after like Horseclans is PA then I would think a game set in an outpost of Rome during the collapse of the empire would be too. Again I wouldn't expect a lot of material but a mention seems appropriate.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? You are an interesting person, you sure you don't want to move to Mariposa, no smog on cars here you know. Actually Mariposa might never be the same if you moved in, just a little too much culture shock for the locals. Your talk of Barter reminds me of the movie scene in A boy and his dog, Don Johnson buys his way into the theatre with a can of Beets he claims are Peaches "what can't you read it says Peaches" (the label clearly says BEETS). I've always had this image of the poor guy expecting to taste peaches getting a nice big bite of beets.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? That is the low end for ammo unless it is unprotected. WW2 vintage ammo (60+ years old) is still widely available and reliable. WW2 ammo was made with resource rationing as a consideration, modern stuff made without these shortages should hold up even better. Something else to consider is restoring old stuff, petrolium products may become contaminated over the years to the point of not being useful for their original purpose but I bet it could be re-refined to its former self. Along with that a little info on the tech required for some critical items, ammunition manufacturing, electricity production, petrolium refining, metal forging etc. Many of these technologies have been available since the 1800's so it shouldn't be that hard to at least get primative versions up and running. The importance of them would definately make their return a high priority. Also ways older tech might return and take the place of high tech. The Soviets continued to develop transistor technology long after the west moved onto circuit boards.They managed to make their transistor tech compete pretty well with more "modern" methods. I can just picture the end of the road warrior with diesel fueled steam engine war chariots instead of cars. Reading your earlier post I should say, I don't expect detailed instructions on how various technologies work, just how much infrastructure is required to run them, stand alone vs lots of supporting tech. Even a time line of when various technologies became practical would be nice for comparison, when did electrical generation become viable as a power source, first practical steam engines, when did metal cartridge ammunition replace cap and ball, steel replace iron, iron replace bronze etc. Just something to help a GM create a "realistic" society rebuilding itself. Some interesting tangents on tech would be nice, Tesla's broadcast electricity or the Soviet use of transistors I mention above. Real world places where the current tech could have taken another turn under different circumstances.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? While the 4th ed Morrow Project is still delayed, much of the original material is still available. http://www.timelineltd.com/ I'd love to get into a MP like game.

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks? These threads just blow my mind if people don't like KA's then don't use them. Seems pretty easy to me, oh, well.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? Well if it is strictly a one book effort it does Make GURPS HERO a better prospect so we can convert Autoduel, Reign of Steel, Y2K, and Ogre

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks? Aaaaaagggggghhh

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? This might be an odd request but I'd actually prefer to see weapons limited to genre specific items, chainsaws, wrist crossbows, homemade flamethowers, truck spring giant arrow launchers, spearguns, baseball bat with nails etc. Dark Champions already has a good sized list of weapons and I'd prefer to see the space used for the genre instead of duplicating DC weapon list.

Re: Post-Apocalyptic Hero -- What Do *You* Want To See? You may already have these to look at, but as a huge fan of the genre, I would highly recommend Aftermath, Morrow Project and Twilight 2000. Aftermath is still the ultimate resource for generic PA gaming rgardless of what system you use. MP and T2000 both have a large fan base and could draw those players to HERO. Like StarHero I think there should be some discussion of hard science vs rubber science. Everybody talks about realistic PA gaming but I think we all know it would be rather depressing to play that we all die of disease, radiation or famine after 6 game weeks of play. Rubber science "magic potions" like Aftermaths Polycellulac (healing and regeneration "medications"), and Morrow Projects Universal Antidote would be good write ups. Also some discussion on how long it would take to rebuild civilzation (and if it is decades or centuries why?). In genre the "end of the world" takes centuries to recover from if not actually being the end of the civilized world, but why would it take that long? I don't expect a huge debate on the subject but some ideas of what would cause the long darkness vs a decade or two of slow recovery would be nice. Thats it for now, I'm sure I will think of more later.

Re: The .50 Beowulf 'Monster Slayer' I came up with 2d6+1 with a +2 stnx for both the .50 Beowulf and .458 SOCOM, 2d6 with a +2 stnx for the subsonic loads. Both rounds are roughly equal in power to the 7.62mm NATO or .30-06, just slower with a bigger bullet.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I know one of the big bore AR's (Beowulf IIRC) was being marketed as an anti-vehicle rifle, something that could take out the engine block of a car or boat. The .458 SOCOM was being pushed as a suppressed semi auto rifle, that big bullet doesn't need to be supersonic to deliver a lot of energy to the target. I'd guess these guns are 80% beer & pretzels and 20% actual need for them.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Yo ho yo ho a pirates life for me - Disneyland pirates of the Carribean (my son is having a pirate themed birthday party and my wife found a cd of pirate music).

Re: "Neat" Pictures These came from Wildland fire dot com (no I didn't hot link, I saved them in my photobucket account). Fire goblins and this one got around quite a bit a few years back Elk taking shelter in creek

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I like the large bore AR-15's out there, I don't know how practical they really are but they do look cool. In addition to the Beowulf guns listed above, there is another company using .338 and .458 rounds and an AR-10 chambered for a .50 round. http://teppojutsu.com/welcome.htm

Re: How common are guns Hey it's the slow moving bowling ball example the small caliber high velocity crowd use to dismiss those who favor large caliber low velocity bullets (.45 ACP). But it proves the big bullet is best, even Superman agrees. Ok, so maybe only the gun bunnies will get it

Re: Victorian / Western HERO Firearms Spence I have had the same idea but get to play so infrequently that I've never followed up on it. I did however come up with a chart for estimated black powder loads that might help you out. I pulled the info from a couple of sources and have a book with a chart to help determine the velocity based on the bullet weight and powder energy. Energy is based on velocity and bullet weight. weapon, bullet wt, velocity, energy .28 / 10gr pistol, 33 Gr, 1510 fps / 458 m/s, 167 ft/lbs / 227 J .31 / 15gr pistol, 49 Gr, 1510 fps / 458 m/s, 248 ft/lbs / 337 J .36 / 22 gr pistol, 82 Gr, 1430 fps / 433 m/s, 372 ft/lbs / 506 J .40 / 25 gr pistol, 96 Gr, 1430 fps / 433 m/s, 436 ft/lbs / 593 J .41 / 10 gr derringer, 96 Gr, 888 fps / 269 m/s, 168 ft/lbs / 227 J .44 / 28 gr pistol, 128 Gr, 1330 fps / 403 m/s, 502 ft/lbs / 683 J .44 / 40 gr pistol, 128 Gr, 1510 fps / 458 m/s, 648 ft/lbs / 882 J .54 / 35 gr pistol, 236 Gr, 1105 fps / 335 m/s, 640 ft/lbs / 870 J .58 / 40 gr pistol, 293 Gr, 1142 fps / 346 m/s, 847 ft/lbs / 1152 J .69 / 49 gr pistol, 493 Gr, 821 fps / 249 m/s, 735 ft/lbs / 1000 J .28 / 20 gr rifle, 33 Gr, 2093 fps / 634 m/s, 320 ft/lbs / 435 J .31 / 30 gr rifle, 49 Gr, 2093 fps / 634 m/s, 475 ft/lbs / 646 J .36 / 44 gr rifle, 82 Gr, 1922 fps / 582 m/s, 671 ft/lbs / 913 J .40 / 55 gr rifle, 96 Gr, 1922 fps / 582 m/s, 785 ft/lbs / 1068 J .44 / 56 gr rifle, 128 Gr, 1800 fps / 545 m/s, 920 ft/lbs / 1252 J .45 / 60 gr rifle, 128 Gr, 1922 fps / 582 m/s, 1047 ft/lbs / 1425 J .50 / 50 gr rifle, 210 Gr, 1472 fps / 446 m/s, 1006 ft/lbs / 1369 J .54 / 60 gr rifle, 236 Gr, 1440 fps / 436 m/s, 1086 ft/lbs / 1478 J .54 / 75 gr rifle, 236 Gr, 1665 fps / 505 m/s, 1454 ft/lbs / 1978 J .54 / 85 gr rifle, 236 Gr, 1724 fps / 522 m/s, 1558 ft/lbs / 2120 J .54 / 100 gr rifle, 236 Gr, 1895 fps / 574 m/s, 1881 ft/lbs / 2559 J .56 / 70 gr rifle, 263 Gr, 1540 fps / 467 m/s, 1383 ft/lbs / 1882 J .577 / 60 gr rifle, 293 Gr, 1413 fps / 428 m/s, 1295 ft/lbs / 1762 J .58 / 60 gr rifle, 293 Gr, 1413 fps / 428 m/s, 1295 ft/lbs / 1762 J .69 / 70 gr rifle, 493 Gr, 1193 fps / 362 m/s, 1553 ft/lbs / 2113 J .69 / 80 gr rifle, 493 Gr, 1260 fps / 382 m/s, 1735 ft/lbs / 2361 J 4ga / 273 gr, 1531gr, 1332 fps / 404 m/s, 6017 ft/lbs / 8186 J 8ga / 135 gr, 793gr, 1305 fps / 396 m/s, 2998 ft/lbs / 4079 J 10ga / 109 gr, 656gr, 1283 fps / 389 m/s, 2388 ft/lbs / 3249 J 12ga / 89 gr, 547gr, 1283 fps / 389 m/s, 1991 ft/lbs / 2709 J 16ga / 75 gr, 437gr, 1305 fps / 396 m/s, 1652 ft/lbs / 2248 J 20ga / 68 gr, 383gr, 1332 fps / 404 m/s, 1505 ft/lbs / 2048 J 28ga / 55 gr, 328gr, 1283 fps / 389 m/s, 1194 ft/lbs / 1625 J The .44 / 28 grain is the standard .44 pistol of the civil war era, the 40 grain load was used in the Colt Dragoon, the periods "magnum" (weighed almost 4 lbs too). Don't recall off hand all the various weapons but this should at least give you a place to start. Chart is a little hard to read, is is weapon (caliber and powder load), bullet weight (grains), muzzle velocity (feet / meters per second), muzzle energy (ft lbs / joules).

Re: Victorian / Western HERO Firearms I have some gun stuff I did in 4th ed stats (don't like what 5th did to the stats), I'll see if I can dig them up and post them. Assume you are looking for 1880-1900 weapons?

Re: Top 10 Action Hero One-Liners What!!! what will come out no more!!? Jack Burton, Big Trouble in Little China "Repeat please". Polish fighter pilot. "Shut up! Silence in Polish". British flight leader Both from Battle of Britain, in one of my favorite scenes from the movie. You go in the cage? Cage goes into the water? Sharks in the water? (singing)So long and adue to my fair spanish maidens (fade). Quint, Jaws Today my jurisdiction ends here, pick up my hat. Sheriff John Langston, Silverado

Re: Maxim's Hottest Comic Females American Maid, because she's hot and she cleans the house (plus the whole maid outfit thing)

Re: Western Hero Book Yep, I agree. Unfortunately the only campaign I played in was short lived too. The GM just didn't get Westerns and it spoiled the genre for the group, so nobody wanted to give it another try with another GM. Only thing I would have changed is the weapons should have been more detailed. While the rules allowed some variety .45 revolver just isn't as cool as S&W No.3, Colt Navy, Walker Dragoon etc

Re: What's the closest you can get to a legal assualt rifle? Up until the 1930's you could buy Thompsons, BARs and sawed off shotguns at SEARS. I want to say 1933 was when the law was passed making weapons with a barrel under 16", automatic weapons etc illegal without a special license. Another law in 1968 further restricted weapons and how they may be sold, 1986 brought us the fabulous law "banning" the import of auto weapons, despite the fact a legally owned autoweapons had never been used in a crime. The 1986 law is what drove the prices up, since the definition of gun was modified to include many of the internal parts. Of course the 1994 law was targeted at cosmetics and detachable magazines. In its usual wisdom the peoples democractic republic of california chose to extend it here. but Nevada is only a short trip away

Re: Need code name for cleaner Well he helps people find thier karmic path, so how about Dali Lama.