Toadmaster

Re: US Police Equipment

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Watched Balls of Fury last night, stupid but funny. Just finished watching (literally, like the credits quit running as I typed this) Jason and The Argonauts for probably the 3 billionth time, love the skeleton battle.

Re: Nature + Fire = What?

Re: The Secret History of America. I'd think the slavery & Jim Crow type issues would probably be best handled similar to Nazi-ism in WW2 games. Its there, you can't dismiss it, but it doesn't need to be an in your face issue either. For many these issues just were, not wrong or right its just how it was, not even something to consider. I heard an interview with Charlie Daniels a while back. He grew up in the Jim Crow south and that is just how it was he didn't know anything else. Only when he got out of the south touring in music gigs, was he able to see there was any other way and that is when he realized things back at home were not right. From a realistic perspective those issues do not need to even come into play, for many at the time it would be like your characters commenting about the weather, or they nice trees, it was just background. Not all northerners were shining examples of equality and not all southerners were rabid racists. So letting the issues cool on a back burner until you feel that your players can handle those themes in an adult way is not dismissing the issues. Obviously for some they were huge issues and offer great source for gaming if appropriate. Sometimes because of what we now know and how culture has changed we tend to think people always had strong feelings about issues important to us today, just as in 100 years people may feel that everybody had an opinion on the environment or Iraq when in fact many never think about those issues. Anyway just my opinion. I like my games to be fun, but what works with one group could be a nightmare with another. I'd be very uncomfortable running or even playing in an East Front WW2 game from the German side, it could be an awesome game or a miserable experience.

Re: Durability of shotgun shells Pretty much covered already, but assuming they were not stored in a grossly inapproprite way (dry, cool, dark place) then I don't see why they would not last for decades. You can still buy cheap ammo produced during WW2 so that is 60+ years old. Shotgun shells have been made from soft plastic similar to glue bottles and hard platic, waxed paper and brass. Some have a brass head, some are all plastic. Brass will corode over time if its damp, this could probably be fixed with some steel wool unless its really bad. Paper shells are easily damaged by damp, they will swell and no longer fit into the chamber. All brass shells are pretty durable but they were heavy. I think plastic shells really came into use in the 60's, they were light weight like paper but water resistant like brass. However they will melt if you fire the gun a lot. That is why the military selected a brass case for the various CAWS full auto shotguns they played with in the 80's. I know you could still get paper shells in the mid 80's, not sure anymore I haven't fired a shotgun in a long time. Best answer was what ever works for your campaign but, I'd say found in a mostly intact structure, 20 years no problem, laying in a ditch 2-5 years (except paper, those would only be good until the first good rain), found in a well made gun safe with dessicant pads, 100 years easy. Pretty much the same for any ammo except paper shells will be more prone to water damage and plastic shells more prone to sun damage, compared to brass cases.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... World War Z by Max Brooks I liked it, it is written in the style of many military history books that are largely based on interviews of those involved. World War Z or the Zombie war, is written just as the nations of earth are eliminating the last pockets of the zombie infestation. Fun book hope they make it a movie. The format used for Band of Brothers would work well (although it cold probably be shorter the BoB's 10 hours. )

Re: Realism check: How accurate are lie detectors? Inaccurate enough that they are not allowed in normal court proceedings and are a hot topic in employment as is psychological profiling. There may be some valid uses but what is acceptable accuracy? 90% is an A but would you be willing to tell 1 in 10 people that they are lying when they are not? I guess you can put me in the sceptical camp, there are a lot of people who seem to be pretty good at telling when someone is lying without a machine too, but not all of them know what they are talking about either.

Re: Move or Shoot Weapon I was going to suggest must brace and Set that way the character has to take an action to prepare to fire and is somewhat set in place (1/2 DCV? I don't have my books handy and I'm on a 3 year HERO dry spell ) That was an option I was looking at for weapons with high power telescopic sights.

Re: What are "vitals" I like the concept that Vitals is a good shot in the torso area, however the hit location chart pretty much says NADS dude you got hit in the NADS. Of course there are also those who suggest "vitals" as put on the hit location chart should extend to 14 and an 11- chance on a roll of 15. Personally I say adjust the hit location chart so that torso armor protects 13.

Re: Weapon Familiarity and Reality Looking at the non proficiency penalty alone is only looking at 1/2 the rule. Common weapons are already really cheap, 1 point for one weapon or two points for the whole group, compared to 1 pt each for uncommon weapons. If you are too cheap to spring for familiarity for the whole group then yes I think -3 is perfectly reasonable, what training the character had was narrowly focussed on one type of weapon. A thrusting weapon is much different than a crushing weapon like a mace. Also keep in mind that a miss does not neccessarily mean you didn't hit your target its means you didn't do anything significant, maybe you hit him with the shaft of the mace or the point of the sword didn't get a bite and slid right along the surface of the armor. A club takes little training to use because it has a large effective attacking surface, not just a weighted end or pointy bit that does the damage.

Re: Horror Hero Without the Supernatural Sort of, I was in a horror game and the GM threw in a non-supernatural "demon", it was just a guy in a rubber suit. Being on edge from the real monsters we had dealt with in the past and thinking a demon must be pretty nasty, we unloaded on it with everything we had, guns, stake launchers, garlic spray etc. The characters ended up doing 20 to life in a mental ward but it did make us as players a little less shoot first and ask questions later with our replacement PCs. I've seen a number of movies that would fall into non-supernatural horror, madmen, cults, and just plain evil people are pretty darn scary because they are not made up. Its easy to blow off the horror of a zombie but a crazy canniballistic devil cult is something I could read about in tommorrows paper (sorry online blog, I need to stay up with technology).

Re: Ace HERO Well I've never heard of a famous RIO, so I think it just goes to the pilot. Bet they don't get the girls either. You might look into Crimson Skies too, it was a FASA game kind of like Battle Tech (vaguely RPG like but really more of a war game). Very pulp feel, semi-post apacalypse, zepplins, fighter pilots etc. Microsoft made a computer game version too. Only problem I really see with using HERO for this style game is the vehicle rules are pretty weak, very much designed for a vehicles are props style campaign, not a vehicles are nearly as important as the pc's game.

Re: Horror Playtest No more vampire like. Its a remake of a remake, which was based on a book. Last Man on Earth with Vincint Price, and later the Omega Man with Charlston Heston. I'm looking forward to the movie as the two earlier movies are classic PA flicks and unless they screw it up I am Legend should be as well. I know Horror has languished since Steve's not a fan and no authors with the proper potential have come forth, I'm used to that. It's the Lucha Hero thing that gets me. It makes me feel like a guy in the emergency room who cut his hand off and has it sitting in a bag of ice on his lap. When the guy having a heart attack gets in before him, ok, that is pretty serious stuff, when the guy with the gunshot wound is brought in ahead of him, yep, he looks like is going to die, understandable that he gets in first. But Lucha Hero is the nurse bringing the guy with the sniffles in straight away while you've been sitting there for hours, you just want to say "hey my arms off". It just makes Horror Hero the Rodney Dangerfield of gaming. But hey, at least its on the radar if not the schedule, and Rodney Dangerfiled was a pretty funny guy.

Re: Horror Playtest I'm glad this is finally on the radar even if not on the schedule yet. I have to ask though, does horror really rate so low that Lucha Hero really beats it to print or was that a fluke right time and place kind of thing. I guess I'm still stunned that Lucha Hero isn't a joke. That so sounds like an April 1st release.

Re: Tremors Hero It was late on a really long day. Besides I think Burt Gummers recreation results in wrecks so it may have been a Fruedian slip.

Re: War Hero (WWII Documentary Resource) I wasn't able to keep up with Ken Burns series so I gave up and plan to get it on DVD. From the little I saw it was really good. Did he cover the war from the others nations view as well or just the US? The two I saw parts of were US oriented. The Gurps WW2 series is great and Pinnacles Wierd War 2 also provides good material for wierd or straight campaigns. I'm currently reading Ivan's war, it is a great book to give the Soviet perspective of the war.

Re: Tremors Hero No rules help for you but I can't pass up a couple of Burt Gummer quotes. Broke into the wrong goshdarn wreckroom. Freeze dried food, water purification system, air filters, God damned Underground monsters. and my favorite What's that? Cannon fuse. What do you have that for? My Cannon.

Re: Old School vs. New School Between 3rd ed and 4th ed there were substantial changes in the system. One of the major changes was in 3rd ed, each game was stand alone with minor variations, so the cost of a disad or advantage in Champions might have a different cost in Fantasy Hero. In 4th ed the system became a generic system with a core rule book and separate genre books. Combat had some changes, in the earlier editions range mod was a -1 for each x", so a pistol might have an Rmod of -1 every 3" and a rifle -1 every 5". In 4th ed this was changed to a basic -2 for every doubling of range and Rmod became a + or - vs range. Some modeling of powers changed as well, for example in the early editions a shotgun did 4x / 3x / 2x / 1x 1d6+1 at different ranges. In 4th ed it became 2 1/2d6 with reduced penetration and reduced by range. Basically 1-3rd ed is a very similar game but not quite the same as 4th and 5th. 5th adds a lot more examples and better explains many of the rules and powers.

Re: Fringeworthy Hero Looks like your off to a good start. I haven't had a look at Fringeworthy in a long time, I know its around here somewhere... Anyway I had a few thoughts, some of this might be covered in the book fringeworthy animals, might seem kind of funny testing animals but having some fringeworth mules, horses, oxen etc would certainly make life easier until they figure out a diesel engine will work. Also pretty useful for getting to places wheels can't go. Team make up, it would make sense that each team member has a speciality like many special forces teams, instructor, communications, heavy weapons etc. Obviously with a different mission the team assignments would not be the same but the concept seems reasonable. Similarly specialty teams similar to The Morrow Project's Recon, Science and Mars teams would be reasonable. Recon / Contact teams being the most common, Science teams being used to learn about new tech and newly discovered cultures and Mars teams for rescuing other teams that get into trouble, dealing with fringepirates and for those times that something just absolutely positively needs to get blown up. Actually The Morrow Project could be very useful for ideas. Now you've got me all excited I'll be digging through boxes all night looking for my Tri-tac stuff.

Re: So I went to EBAY Ebay is great for old games, I went on a spree a couple years back and picked up Recon (pretty much everything from RPG Inc as well as Paladium, boy did Paladium suck the life out of that game) Behind Enemy Lines (FASA & The Companions) FASA's Delta Force FGU's Merc & PSI World Millinium's End (pretty much everything) Also a few HERO and GURPS books I didn't have My first ebay purchase was from someone on these (well the old) boards which was nice because I didn't have a clue about how to do anything with ebay.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I know what you mean, there are lots of guns I would like to get, and theoretically I could afford them but it would be at the cost of other hobbies / vacations etc. I have the basics I need to defend myself from zombie hordes so its hard to justify some of the additions I'd like to get. It is particularly hard since I don't have the time to actually get to the range anymore.

Re: Fringeworthy Hero Yeah, the tri-tac rules were hit or miss, they had some great rules but there were also some pretty big holes too. The settings were the best, we ran several Stalking games under Hero which was a perfect fit.

Re: Fringeworthy Hero I don't have anything useful to add at the moment but I had to give you a I love the Tri-Tac games. I mostly played Stalking the Night Fantastic but Fringeworthy and FTL2448 were great too.

Re: help with ship clasifications You can look at the present and can see the writing on the wall, the manned fighter is on the decline. Drones are being used for recon, guided missiles are largely replacing aircraft for anti-ship work and quite a bit of ground attack as well. Really the only reason you even have manned fighter / attack aircraft is so a human is making the final decision on whether the target should be attacked, well that and fighter pilot is a glamourus position, the Navy and Air Force would probably lose a lot of potential recruits if their options were cut back to ship scraper, mechanic and flying school bus driver. For any fairly hard science campaign missles and drones will serve the role of the modern fighter, space fighters are very pulp sci-fi. The idea of smaller attack craft supported long term by a "mothership" actually does make sense and actually is perfect for a group of PC's.