arcady

Re: What Champions Universe character would you gender change?

Re: [CAMPAIGN] KoK Fantasy Hero I'd be interested in seeing your GM's notes for magic. Did (s)he use killer shrike's DnD magic conversions, the FH grimoires, or something unique? Tossing my players back into Kalamar, but using Hero, might be a way to get them to try FH. Probably not, but I could try to brow beat them with it.

Re: How to end a dystopia... These two themes are actually not present in most Cyberpunk literature. From 'Software' to 'Islands in the Net' to 'Slant' to one of the three stories in 'Moreau Omnibus' to 'Total Recall' (both the movie and the story it was very loosely based on) to 'Future Cops' to 'Ultimate Cyberpunk' to many more examples - those two themes just are not present. Just as often Corporations play no role at all, or are the good guys, and just as often government is the overpowerful entity, and again just as often the protagonist comes from the middle class or even the wealthy and powerful elites. What the genre shares across all of these is a sense of disillusionment in a realization that someting is wrong, and a world where the dreams of the future have come at a cost that is makes them of questionable worth. It is often referred to as a dystopia because at the outset it appears to be a utopia, and often even the protagonist thinks they are living in a utopia until somebody pulls off their rose colored glasses. In fact, in Technogenesis, the protagonist actually had on special glasses which were taken off revealing a whole different world... Sometimes, the protagonist only sees her dystopia fully after she has become part of the 'powers that be', such as in Johnny Zed after the revolution succeeds and the heroine realizes that taking over the USA has not given her the utopia she thought it would. It is very popular in gaming communities to assume these things are parts of the genre because the Cyberpunk RPG claimed them as major elements, and Shadowrun and other RPGs copied the Cyberpunk RPG rather than the literature... But this is one of the major reasons why I feel no RPG has as yet managed to do the Cyberpunk genre. Because these two themes are only present in a small part of the literature. Likewise for other 'gamer iconic themes' such as cyberware, the net, and AIs. Those feature in Neuromancer and some of Gibson's other works, but are minority elements in the larger genre, and in fact the popular gamer idea of cyberpsychosis doesn't even seem to have any basis in the genre - but seems to be wholly a fabrication of the Cyberpunk RPG, then copied on to others, to create game balance... Though I might be wrong here... I do not recall it any of the very few Cyberpunks books I know of with Cyberware in them, but it might have been 'under the surface' of Gibson's works. I didn't like him as a writer so I may have missed it. As a major fan of Cyberpunk literature, who's read quite a lot of books in the genre, this 'corps and downtrodden' myth is a big pet peeve of mine. It just isn't there in most of the source.

Re: The Future of Small Arms My favorite sci fi combat was the old Albedo RPG and the comic behind it. Mass driver ship to ship combat at near light speed - you come in system and start to decelerate and the Independent Lapine Republic's ships are there - you and they fire off your weapons... and due to the acceleration / deceleration / time dilation after jump, you have upwards of a 3 month wait before impact... But you know within second if you will hit or be hit, and if you will be hit, death is near certain... Can make for a great mini campaign startup - day one of the game begins with launch of mass and determination that you are fated to die. The ship's engineer tells you the exact second the ship will be destroyed. At the speed's your at, lifeboats won't survive leaving, or could trap you in eternal near light speeds if you flee... what to do with your remaining time. Now in real physics, you might be able to turn out of the way, even at those speeds. I ran the notion past a physicist friend once and that was his first guess, but he never sat down to think about it. And it's been almost a decade and a half since I looked at the explanation for while it was so unavoidable... but plot wise the idea is interesting.

Re: [CAMPAIGN] KoK Fantasy Hero Oooo... KoK campaign using FH. How did I miss this one. KoK was the reason it too me so long to abandon d20 DnD... KoK was worth sticking it out over, even if the rules for using it were completely -not- to my tastes. Hope you have fun, wish I was there for that one. I used to have a KoK name generator online, but all backups to it were on the portable Iomega 100gb drive that I bricked over the summer, and topcities took down their free websites without warning... so I don't even have a compiled version of the thing anymore. Too bad too, it had every name published in every KoK book through mid 2003 - and would mix up the personal and surnames to give you a unique name fitting your character's language.

Re: Opinion Fluff: Game Philosophies

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero DnD has had instant 'ok, you're level 3,274 and you worked it all up fairly in 1E and now you need to roll 19+ on a d20 or lose all that in one die roll' since day one... That's just the way DnD works. Module S1, if I recall right, has several 'cannot be raised from this' instant traps in it. DnD players accept that paradigm. Best DnD game I played in had on average 2 PC deaths per session - most of them attributable to the same unlucky player, he only shook that loose when he made a half-orc (a race he didn't like) barbarian (a class he didn't like), with a name and equipment he also didn't like... Half-orcs in that group had never before survived their first encounter, no matter what level they were made at. So naturally, this one survived to the end of that campaign... But... Hero has no 'wham bam, roll one die to end it all' - everything in Hero gets 'litigated' - once you sit down to Hero you switch your assumptions and presume that if you're going to lose our character, the GM is going to have to show all the work and prove it 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. That's just the paradigm of Hero. Heroic Level hero can be a little different. You can get a one shot kill. But it's not assumed that it will happen with regularity, and when it does you can usually see why and how and accept it because the numbers behind it are all there and can be looked at and understood... Which, for me, actually helps Fantasy Hero over DnD... But it can for some DnD players take away the thrill of 'random character for the evening #32'.

Re: Out of Print? The best way to convince people that GURPS is a bad choice is to force them to play it... I went through GURPS right after 4e came out. I'm a long time GURPS fan, or was, until 4e. I started with 'Melee' of 'The Fantasy Trip' back in 1982 - 2nd RPG system I ever owned, only because I thought it was a DnD module and I was, well, 11, and didn't know better. But GURPS 4e has just enough added options to remind you on a constant basis that you be playing Hero where could tweak this or that just a bit more and change it from 'close but not quite' to 'just right'. The whole game makes you feel like Goldilocks in the three Bear's house after Ma and Pa got a divorce so you're only left with Pa and little bear... You know Ma is out there, and you can constantly feel that this house just ain't hers anymore. And where it limits, ack... it really limits. Slamming up against the walls of GURPS can be painful. Of course, the end result when I started feeling this way was a group split - as half the group refused to even try Hero, and got very angry when it was suggested that we stage two games biweekly - one GURPS and one Hero - to compare... It was a four person group, two ex-DnD players for GURPS and two fans of many systems for Hero.

Re: Out of Print?

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero I have no respect left for Conan since he became governor of California... On the meta-features of fantasy, and the ease or difficulty of using FH over Champions... I find, as I said in an earlier post, that Fantasy Hero does the expectations of DnD better and easier than DnD does them. I also find FH a lot less cluttered than Champions, and I personally feel the Hero system no longer scales well to super heroes, but scales perfectly to Heroic level - Fantasy Hero, Dark Champions, and so on... There are less variables to track, and the scale of the numbers is smaller - which helps lower complexity. Further there is greater similarity among characters in vital stats like speed, which goes very far towards speeding play.

Re: Opinion Fluff: Game Philosophies Authority: - GM is final adjudicator of the rules, but discretion is not arbitrary. More like a judge that has rules and ethics to follow. I don't like the idea of strict authorities. People should discuss and reach consensus. The 'Authority' of the GM is only there to make final rulings. Of course the other roles of the GM in presenting setting and keeping the story flowing are also key. But they don't hinge on a notion of arbitrary authority. When the GM makes an incorrect ruling, that -should- be pointed out so it can be corrected. Interpretation: - If the rules don't say anything, read them again until they do. Through analysis a meaning can alway be found. Often one has to look beyond the text to the intent of its author and the principles behind the rules structures involved. But, from that, and interpretation can be found. Group Dynamic: - The group is who the GM invites, and who is willing to be in the same game together. No more standard exists for this than would for any informal social gathering. Conflict Resolution: Your examples here seem to be matters of interpretation and not conflict resolution. So let me reanswer interpretation, and then answer conflict. Interpretation part two: - If a rule is unclear, the game stops until it is clear. Everyone is welcome to look it up and figure out what the book says. Discussion will then work to find an interpretation where the plain meaning of the language is not clear. It is better to have clear and fairly determined rules known than to make an arbitrary decision that will lead to resentment from a feeling of unfair bias. If we can handle breaking the game between sessions, we can certainly handle the shorter break needed to look up a rule. Conflict: - If you start a fight, you're out. If you start a debate and its a good one, we'll debate it. If you bring drugs you are out and expect police to show up at your door or maybe even drag you off. If you disrespect the others at the table, you are out. Fight has come up once for me, in a Shadowrun game in 1999. Drug users have tried to get into my games three times... I have and will continue to work with the courts and criminal justice system, and I have had people who work with primary-school children. Neither of those two can tolerate people who bring illegality to the game table. the other's have been non issues as much as I can recall.

Re: The Future of Small Arms Ah ok. I thought this thread was about possibilities in the future, and not fantasy with fishbowl helmets and saturn-rin costumes. (No harshness intended, the above is tongue in cheek)

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO? Isn't that the book with teenage cyber-super-heroes though? - If so, that would throw it straight out of my view of Cyberpunk.

Re: Cyberpunk / Dystopian Adventure Formulas Here are some plothooks taken from the Mosquito PDF book. The plothooks section is one of the sections I am presently re-writing, alongside converting the book to Hero stats. These are longer than those in most of this thread - I'm putting them here as ideas for people rather than inclusion into a short-listing, though I suppose some of them could be edited down. They're split into 'Cops' and 'Crooks' - are the PCs working with or against the law / system? The Cops list is presently more developed in the book, so I had more examples to pull from. A number of them are 'inspired' by detective shows or real life crime. Cops: Investigation of a late night 'hit-and-run' has strange parallels to a new SIN-game. A copy cat thrillseeker? Could the maker of the SIN-game be behind the crime as a publicity stunt? Could an anti-game-violence activist group be behind it as a counter publicity protest? A SIN-Spam attacker is forcing victims to 'live through' snuff films, either as the perp or the victim. Clue might be in the choice of hacked victims, or the 'SIN-cast' itself. Crime might have been uncovered after a victim committed suicide believing the incident was a true memory or merely from the trauma or recognition of something in the 'SIN-cast'. PCs find clues to suspect one of their superiors is on the take with organized crime. Now they must either investigate the matter or cover it up without getting 'dragged in' to the web of scandal. PC's unit / squad / group is accused of plotting a coup by an MP up for re-election. PCs suddenly on the run trying to prove innocence. Perhaps uncover a real coup plot in process. Routine criminal investigation implicates a major political figure. After evidence is 'bagged and tagged' PCs are approached by agents of Secret Police who 'inform' them of the need for silence and discretion. Or alternatively, Secret Police informs them they must investigate, and will be 'assisted', after their own superiors have tried to silence the matter. Someone is 'tagging' 'wave-billboards' to broadcast their 'tag sign' rather than the intended advertising / public service messages. Who is behind this graffiti? What is now being said that is important enough for police to care? Something contrary to legally accepted memes? An office building implodes / collapses, killing all inside and destroying vast amounts of company data. What happened, why? Was it perhaps an inside job to cover up a crime or unmentionable embarrassment? A Corporate employee comes to the police to blow the whistle on some illegal activity, but the corp hires assassins to prevent this. Perhaps they just need to make a kill, or perhaps they desire to capture sensitive data the employee has before it can be decrypted. Police must prevent the assassination, and prove a connection to the Corps. A popular sport's figure or entertainer is cyber-brain hacked during a match / game / performance. Whatever cyberlimbs they posses are sent out of control, or perhaps a singer is revealed to be performing recordings (cyber lip-sync) when her vocal chords are hacked and a confession is read out. PCs must uncover the culprit as well as deal with the controversy over the figure and whether or not to bring that person in for 'fraud' or 'athletic cheating' or a similar crime. Crooks: Bodies have been disappearing in the hood and the police don't care or haven't noticed. The group's favorite local restaurant owner is doing a brisk business with his new 'Gnu-Meat' pies, supposedly made from the best flavored soy products. But just why does he keep an antique meat grinder in the back office...? When a rival goes missing, and a PC sees something being dragged in the alley that nobody should ever see... do they help, or stop a madman? After an accident, a wealthy individual has been gravely injured, losing a limb or vital organ. Cyber-replacements are available, but oh so unfashionable. A new limb can be grown, but takes years, and they need to be ready for a party in three nights... PCs are hired to 'snatch an organ' from a suitable 'donor', and their employer happens to have a DNA profile highly compatible with a number of people previously ID'd by their medical staff for just such an emergency. Or as a variation, PCs must hack the JF DNA records and find matches. Sure, the new organ will only last long enough to grow a real replacement, or maybe only enough to keep yet another donor, but fashion is fashion... A local smuggler is short for his next order, three slaves died from an overzealous bodyguard. PCs have been hired to scout the streets and find three new victims to kidnap – all to be under-aged Anthros/exotics/[insert minority faction here]. It's a snatch and grab plot of the darkest sort, as these victims will be headed into a life of the worst form of slavery. But hey, it will pay the bills. PCs are hired to find and 'recruit' 'actors' for an illegal snuff SIN. They can use force or trickery, and maybe each role in the SIN requires a different tactic.

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO? I would disagree on Dystopian being overdone. In fact, I haven't seen a dystopian setting for Cyberpunk roleplay published yet. I've seen action genre settings (Cyberpunk 2013/2020, OGL Cybernet), and I've seen classical science fiction and transhuman (GURPS), I've seen Dungeon Crawl with guns (Shadowrun), as well as post-Collapse (MAd Max style), and even 'bright new wonderful future (two of the settings in Ex Machina feel this way), and I've seen 'Global Gladiatorial Arena' like 'Escape from New York (another of the Ex Machina settings), and I've seen 'Nano-Cyborg meets Project Aiko complete with fan-service and Team-America visuals' (Cyberpunk v3, and the last setting of Ex Machina [minus visuals])... But Dystopia? Nope, haven't found it yet. Of course, I have a few rants online about my personal opinion that the Cyberpunk genre hasn't actually been done yet in an RPG. None of the offerings fit into the genre I see in the literature. Some come close to the movies and anime, but I don't accept that as genre-meeting.