pnewman

Re: PS238 Roleplaying Game Back to actual discussion of PS 238 - According to the PS238 character sheet (page 77, not page 75 as stated in the index) characteristics have a base value of 10, as in most HERO games. However the character write ups for all the kid characters show them as having starting characteristics of 5 (although write-ups for adults clearly base their characteristics on 10's) Is the character sheet wrong, or are the write-ups wrong? I'd say kids should be based on 5, and that the sheet is wrong.

Re: PS238 Roleplaying Game Re: Distributors and retailers A more accuarate description of what distributors and retailers do is - Guess how many they should order based on their pre-orders. When stores that pre-order from that distributor don't bother to pre-order than the distributors under-order and sell out. Then the few good shops that do sensible pre-orders get the products in, sell out of their pre-order in a month or two, go to re-order, and find out they can't because the distributor is out of stock. With the consolidation among distributors the store often doesn't have another good source for ordering the product. With recent gas price increases shipping costs have also gone up a lot, making air freighting games economically unjustifable, and requiring slower ground shipments, making out of stock periods even longer.

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous) Elvis Impersonator HERO Elvis Movie HERO Mortician HERO Childrens Breakfast Cereal Mascot HERO (Tony the Tiger, Count Chocula, etc.) Game Store Buyer HERO (Alliance is out of stock on Thurn & Taxis again, the Princess Bride T-shirts are out of print, that used lot of first ed Shadowrun supplements hasn't sold yet, and it's time to mark down the 3rd party D20 games again, its also time to place your orders for the 4th ed Dungeons & Dragons Core Books, and Mall Security says you can't carry those sword canes you just got in from BudK.)

Re: Tell us about your Pulp game! Yeah, the Titanic was actually my first thought. The problem with that is that they've already been in touch with base, so if this isn't their world that means that there is another close parallel with interdimensional travel who has all the same people on a team. I don't think I want to go there, especially since their probable response would be to find and kill their duplicates, and anyone else who got in the way, on the grounds that they were a threat to the 'real' world. One of the players suggested that they travel on the Olympic, the Titanics sister ship. I suppose I could find a map of the Olympic if I wanted to have a shipboard adventure, but I think I just may get them to New York City and spring an adventure on them there. In a previous adventure the teams medical doctor, an italian immigrant who grew up in NYC discovered that one of the Roman legionaries (with SMG's) they ran into was actually his cousin, or rather his cousins duplicate. When they got home to be debriefed on this adventure I established that the cousin in question was actually a Mafia 'soldier' on this side. I may try to do something related to the Doctors family, the mob, and Prohibition.

Re: Tell us about your Pulp game! Thanks. In Sundays session they finally found their way back to the 'real' world, but they came out through the European gate, located in that famous salt mine in Poland, south of Kracow. After sneaking past the guard, walking to town, and taking the bus to the bigger town with a working telegraph office they finally contacted home. The agency wanted them to get them back to Nevada for a debriefing so, via Western Union, they received bus tickets to Berlin, to catch the train for Normandy. Their fake (but issued by the US government) papers get them out of Poland and into Germany easily. I gloss over their guides, Ambrose Bierce (rescued from Aztec Pole shift world) lack of papers. So they're travelling through Germany in late 1923.... I think for a moment and tell them. "The bus pulls into the bus station for gas and food. As you get off the bus you notice a bunch (80 or 90) of papramilitary men with signs and clubs. They're wearing some sort of Hindu symbol on their arms.... Most of the PC's don't speak much German. The one who speaks it fluently (Dad was in the state department and he grew up in the prewar Austro Hungarian empire) speaks it with an Austrian accent. So he tries to ask the Brownshirt what's up, and the Nazi tries to hit him with a club saying "Austrian scum!". Then a PC draws his gun. Then another Nazi swings at him anyway, then PC's guns draw start going off. Then the Nazis start fighting back, and it looks as if our five stalwart heroes may be overwhelmed. Then they start using their grenades. In public, they're throwing grenades into a crowd that includes civilians who were just getting off the bus! End result 25-30 Nazis run off, 25-30 Nazis dead, 25-30 Nazis wounded to unconsciousness or worse, and only one civilian, a small boy, killed by the grenades. They 'borrow' a BMW and make it to Berlin to catch their train. The headline story in the Berlin paper reads "NSDAP coup fails. Communist counterdemonstrators massacre dozens!", as I cut them a break. Nazi's, they hate those guys. Then I invoke the famous red line across the map and they reach Le Havre. I don't want to spend too much time in the 'real' world but I'm thinking of setting next weeks session in London. I just need to figure out what the hook will be. I've already given them tickets to the Chanel ferry with instruction to catch a liner for New York out of Southhampton, so maybe I'll shake things up a bit.

Re: Tell us about your Pulp game! My Pulp game is set in 1923. During the Great War the US government learned that there was a natural portal to another world where mankind never developed. After failing to join the League of Nations, guardians of the European portal, they searched America for their own portal. Findin one near Carson City, Nevada, they proceeded to plunder the gold and silver from other side Nevada and California. When a highly advanced (DC-3 analog) plane, all of whose controls were labeled in Latin, was found in northern California the government realized that there were many worlds out there. The players go through these natural gates to see what they can find. So far they've been to Zombie-World, Roman-World, fought Zapatistas in the 'real' world, gone to post catastrophic global warming 160 degree world, Confederate World (CSA and USA), and Aztec Pole Shift world. They've just escaped into a "Oh God the earth is in small pieces and there is a miles long monster eating the pieces!" world. I hope they won't try to fight the 3 mile long Dhole, it would take a 100 Megaton bomb to kill it.