arcady

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... This is how I felt in a recent GURPS game I played in. I hadn't been around GURPS in years, and you could say 'it was 4e so what can you expect when everyone is new to it' but among the others were two GURPS fiends. By somewhere in the second or third session I was the one with all the rules info - and the 'there's a rule for that?' was common enough for a response. Of course, it also made me realize just how frustrating of a system GURPS actually is, as half the rules I looked up where things that prevented me or someone else from playing in the style that would have been most enjoyable... Levels of reading comprehension vary greater, and even more so the ability to look at something and then see how it would or might apply in a different circumstance is greater lacking in most people (thankfully, or people like me would be out of work in the legal profession... )

Re: Valdorian Characters

Re: Valdorian Characters

Re: Comments on sexism and racism at the outset of Pulp Hero

Re: Turakian vs Valdorian? That's not a bad way of putting it - though I don't recall Thieve's World ever saying much about what was beyond the local region, and I believe there actually are places like Sanctuary in the Conan world (though the visual most people have of Conan is 'Governator in a loincloth' in the wilds). Personally, I think Turakian Age's world works better than either Greyhawk or Middle Earth though. As for timelines between the two, I personally would use them as completely seperate worlds with no connection to each other or any other age.

Re: Anybody playing Valdorian Age?

Re: More Turakian Age - modelling nationalities I would try to avoid making any parallels along any of these lines, and instead just focus on the region as it is actually described and think of how people in such an environment would form their lives - then base NPCs and package deals on that rather than on trying to allocate ethnic stereotypes (which are so often grossly incorrect). What I would do if I felt I needed more than the book provides is create 5 'buzz-memes' for each culture / region in the book based on no more than the description of that region itself, and its neighbors alongwith how it interacts with those neighbors. A buzz meme is just a 'catchphrase' that captures some cultural element of a society. I found them very useful in building my science fiction setting. Here's a sample from that, showing the 'key memes' of one culture in my sci-fi setting: Look out for number one, nobody else will. A person's virtue is measured by their wealth and influence. Never follow, and be wary of leading – a leader is only the follower in front. New is best, tradition holds you back. Protect the rights of all or there will be rights for no one. You could be next. This for me works as nearly all I would need to figure out three basic kinds of people from this culture: The fanatic who takes those ideals like they were 'the word of god' and follows them to an extreme, the 'average joe' who exists in moderate conformaty and spouts the rhetoric while really just getting by with life, and the rebel who tries to be an opposite of what her culture upholds. From that, I would build out NPCs and package deals around those themes, and would not try to pin that list to an actual Earth culture (even though in the above case, as a near-future setting, it is a list actually based on a movement currently happening in China's major cities - other lists for other cultures might not be based on real cultures, and this list is for a people not in the present day, so they shouldn't act like real world people nor even stereotypes of real people).

Re: Anybody playing Valdorian Age? White supremacists and christian groups with leanings toward such groups are the ones against Huck Finn, and they have been against it since the day it was published. Huck Finn is a book about overcoming racism, and showing how wrong racism is. That said, society is not focused on race enough - we slide it under the table, pretend like it's all over now and everything is fixed, and as a result the problems just continue to get passed through the generations, the social system, and in our individual actions.

Re: Comments on sexism and racism at the outset of Pulp Hero I also agree that history should never be sanitized. I would also say the generally the people who advocate for a 'PC world today' (which is nothing more than strive to treat everyone else as an equal and respect their differences) also tend to work to undo a lot of the 'sanitizing', 'propaganda' and 'political use' of history as it was read about or recorded in past by adding in the things not let in before - such as the truth of how minority groups live and lived in the USA rather than the version of suh our parent's generation got in their history education. Pulp that recreates history has to deal with a world that is very ignoble. Modern users of the genre may or may not choose to have protagonists reflect this as well. I myself, if I were doing historical pulp, might very well make a protagonist who was either a perpetraitor or victim of this reality - but then I'm not a fan of idealistic characters or idealistic notions.

Re: Anybody playing Valdorian Age? Off topic to Valdorian Age: Pulp fiction was used to promote nationalistic agenda against the 'percieved threats' of the day - Chinese, Communists, Nazis, and Black middle class empowerment. Much of the genre also works to justify the exploitation of indigenous people in the Amazon, Africa, and Oceana by depicting them as violent savages. Racism is openly declared in such works as Tarzan and King Kong, along with villains who are built to engineer racial stereotypes such as Fu Manchu or depections of Japanese and 'jungle blacks / jungle amazonians'. The genre was often an openly used tool of political and social propaganda by both the government and families such as the racist Hearsts (of Patty Hearst and SF Examiner fame, who engineered many of the anti-asian laws in California and had as the greatest moment, the internment of Japanese descended Americans in WWII). Pulp reflects its times, but its times were racist. Modern readers, new writers, roleplayers, and re-enactments of pulp have to take this into consideration and address how they will deal with it in today's world were such themes are no longer viable, let alone acceptable. Further, there is a lot of pulp that goes beyond mere reflection of its times, and was a provocateur of its times - pulp often served to advocate extremes of racism even stronger than those present in its day in an open effort by some of the major publishers to 'indoctrinate a new generation' into racism. We can enjoy some of the better aspects of pulp, but we have to be aware of and account for how to deal with the less noble side as well. Saying otherwise is like (albeit not as severe as) going to a KKK rally and only noting how it promotes brotherhood, alumus connections, social activism, and community awareness (all of which is true) while ignoring 'certain other' aspects. Pulp was not a reflection of its times, it was a tool - of both the good and bad agendas. On topic: As for VA, that only reflects back in the awareness that it is a recreation of the style of fantasy started under the pulps, and later less popular in the face of the two styles of modern literary fantasy and gamer fantasy. VA's style of fantasy inherits some pulp themes, and some of those might be on the racialism end.

Re: DnD's Spiked Chain

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers

Re: DnD's Spiked Chain Having been in a war museum and seen an actual several hundred year old 'used in the field to fend off Japanese raiders' 12 foot long sword, I'm not so ready to pass off exremes in weapons as something that couldn't be used effectively.

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers Problem is two fold there: 1. The 'wild fronteir' of America had a population of about 15 million people before Americans moved into it (but only 200 thousand by the about 1900 among that same group). This is a different topic though. 2. The main issue. 'agrarian societies' require highly dense populations. England in the middle ages just around the black plague was about 40 or per square mile, where the rest of Europe averaged 80-120 per square mile, and this was lower than most of the civilizations of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. (there were multiple cities in the millions during that same time period, just not in Europe). Outside of that time period, Europe had much higher population densities as well. Agrarian civilizations tend to need a village every hours walk, a town every day's walk, and a city every maybe six to a dozen towns. You need to be close together to handle the fact that you don't have refrigeration, trains, or trucking. Supplies need to be able to be moved from one point to another before they spoil, and you can only hold territory you can deploy troops to within a fairly short time span. This is why you get so much wildlands. Perhaps between 40 to 60 percent of Europe in the middle ages was not occupied by anyone. It was the land between kingdoms, rather the land within them. The city sizes you see in DnD, based on places like black plague England, are city sizes of civilizations in near collapse or early stages of recovery rather than stable or even surviving conflict. At those numbers, its a coin toss whether you will end up being the British Empire or the Mayan Ruins. Fantasy is one thing, but it works best when the elements that are not fantastic and do not have declared and explained fantastis rationales are rooted in something sensible and not outright silly. Compare New England to the rest of the USA. The 'west' had so few white people for so long because until they got the railroad they had no ability to support their kind of civilization out there. By contrast New England fit the model of Europe in its healthy periods - very close in dense communities of villages clustered in a web around towns that cluster in a web around cities that clustered together to form a colony / state. The South by contrast went for plantations, built much like medieval manors, which clustered around towns which clustered around a smaller number of cities that would bring in / out resources to the colony / state. Southern plantations were a lot like medieval serf villages (and serfs were also a form of slave btw, albeit a lot better off than the Southern slave). Both models stick to the same basic format of clustering civilization rather than spreading it out - the main difference is 'capitalist north' v 'fiefdom south' (if you read people like Jefferson and Madison, it is interesting to read how evil they found the ideas of capitalism and democracy - but that again is another topic). Back to original question: In reality, there should only be zero to one really wealthy person, but for good story dynamics, three works best. Two makes the competition too obvious, three makes a triangle and intrigue is just like romance - it gives the best fiction in a triangle.

Re: DnD's Spiked Chain That's a problem with DnD's Attack of Opportunity rather than the chain itself. The Attack of Opportunity mechanic is supposed to simulate getting the drop on something coming into or through your space without being prepared, but it gives you a free attack rather than an 'abort' of your upcoming attack, and as such it becomes the best way to get multiple attacks per round in DnD. Rather than being a mechanic to get the drop on people, it becomes a mechanic to make you move faster... If it worked as an 'abort next attack to take a swing on them before they can swing at you' it would balance in conceptually and not cause the DnD spiked chain to be an unbalanced weapon. That said, a DnD combat round is six seconds long, and I know from my own past fighting experience that many entire fights can play out in full in that space of time with multiple hard strikes on both sides.

Re: The purpose of a system - academic and geeky... Exactly. If you aren't asking questions, you aren't living. The joy in having a mind is in using it. I see the -to me illogical- comment of 'stop analyzing it / asking questions and just have fun with it' a lot, and I have to say, if you aren't analyzing it and asking questions about it; just how can you enjoy it? I make no apologies for being an intellectual and being unable to turn off my brain.

Re: DnD's Spiked Chain I don't think DnD's chain does too much damage itself, I think that because DnD has the Attack of Opportunity rules it ends up delivering too many attacks and thus doing more damage than 'would be nice for game balance'. That said, getting hit by a spinning spiked ball on the end of the chain should be a bone crushing as well as impaling moment. Flails are not nice things to get hit by, and they don't get any nicer for removing the stick handle part and having 'a chain and ball/blades on both ends'. Flails, in my opinion, have more momentum behind them than swords of equivalent usage. That spiked-chain / kusari is even more so. it won't beat the cutting power or precision of a sword, and an opponant might be able to tangle you easier if they can get you wrapped around something, but it puts all of its weight on the end and that counts for something.

Re: DnD's Spiked Chain I think a lot of people just don't have a good mental visual for how it 'works' and so they think it is either unrealistic or impossibly hard. Having seen more acrobatic styles of fighting than the 'SCA stand there and thwak them with your cardboard sword' variety, I've no issues with the weapon. Its just all about keeping the 'dance' going - and even stopping your motion is no problem - its an object that moves very rhythmicly.

Re: Filthy Rich Burghers Probably three. Also, I know DnD likes those small cities, but historically they're not really realistic. DnD seems to have based its numbers on the height of the black plague in only England as if it was some kind of norm. 15,000 is about half the size of my college campus, and that fit within a 2 block square radius with plenty of open space. Classicial cities were often only a mile or two square, but they were also very concentrated (dense) and a lot more populous than in DnD. If you're working coastal trade cities, I'd look at population figures for Italy, Byzantine Empire, Greece, or Spain and not England.

Re: DnD's Spiked Chain

Re: Strength Cost: 1 point or 2 Don't think I've ever heard of this house rule. So for me, 1 point per point. It's never presented a problem for me in play, so I've never thought about it.

I haven't picked up a copy yet, but I read the initial section in the local store yesterday. I wanted to say that I do strongly appreciate the open recognition of the roots and truth of this genre. Such statements go a -LONG- way towards smoothing ill waters. The recognition of the very strong themes of sexism and racism in the fiction of the Pulp era was honest, thorough, not dismissive in the way so many people in the rpg-hobby have been over the issue (in this and other genres), and for once insistant about the need to stay aware of how it is dealt with in gaming. I didn't get the book yet, because I went home with Teen Champions and the Combat handbook instead (and I was glad to see an address to the issues of racism in the teen book as well under cliques), but it will go on the list in time.

Re: Ritual Magic Limitations The system I used in 'Fahla' was heavily built with the presumption that most major magic was done through rituals: http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/fahla/Gaming/magic_Hero.html In specific: http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/fahla/Gaming/magic_Hero.html#ritual

Re: Herophile Fantasy art

Re: Your "2005" Pet Gaming Projects My lifepath project has moved. An official downloadable version 1.0 is now here: http://www.geocities.com/arcady0/SciFi/lifepath.html The older copy on my other website has been removed for now. The above URL has both a zip download and an online usable version.